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PETER IBBETSON

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ONTARIO

Peter Ibbetso n"

Im* * ‘

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HIS COUSIN

LADY

(“MADGE PLUNKET”)

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EDITED AND ILLUSTRATED BY

GEORGE du MAURIER

London

JAMES R. OSGOOD, MMLVAINE & CO.
45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
MDCCCXCII

A ll rights resen'ed

M'

“ O toi qui m’apparus dans ce desert du monde,
Habitante du ciel, passagere en ces lieux ! ”

Lamartine.

pact jftrgt

INTRODUCTION

The writer of this singular autobiography was my cousin,

who died at the - Criminal Lunatic Asylum, of which

he had been an inmate three years.

He had been removed thither after a sudden and
violent attack of homicidal mania (which fortunately led

to no serious consequences) from - Jail, where he had

spent twenty-five years, having been condemned to penal

servitude for life, for the murder of - - - - , his

relative.

He had been originally sentenced to death.

It was at - - Lunatic Asylum that he wrote these

memoirs, and I received the MS. soon after his decease,
with the most touching letter, appealing to our early
friendship, and appointing me his literary executrix.

It was his wish that the story of his life should be
published just as he had written it.

I have found it unadvisable to do this. It would
revive, to no useful purpose, an old scandal, long buried
and forgotten, and thereby give pain and annoyance to
people who are still alive.

Nor does his memory require rehabilitation among

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those who knew him, or knew anything of him — the only
people really concerned. His dreadful deed has long
been condoned by all (and they are many) who knew the
provocation he had received and the character of the man
who had provoked him.

On mature consideration, and with advice, I resolved
(in order that his dying wishes should not be frustrated
altogether) to publish the memoir with certain alterations
and emendations.

I have nearly everywhere changed the names of
people and places ; suppressed certain details, and omitted
some passages of his life (most of the story of his school¬
days, for instance, and that of his brief career as a private
in the Horse Guards) lest they should too easily lead to
the identification and annoyance of people still alive, for
he is strongly personal at times, and perhaps not always
just ; and some other events I have carefully paraphrased
(notably his trial at the Old Bailey), and given for them
as careful an equivalent as I could manage without too
great a loss of verisimilitude.

I may as well state at once that, allowing for these
alterations, every incident of his ?iatural life as described
by himself is absolutely true, to the minutest detail, as I
have been able to ascertain.

For the early part of it — the life at Passy he describes
with such affection — I can vouch personally ; I am the
Cousin “ Madge ” to whom he once or twice refers.

I well remember the genial abode where he lived with
his parents (my dear uncle and aunt), and the lovely
“ Madame Seraskier,” and her husband and daughter, and
their house, “ Parva sed Apta,” and “ Major Duquesnois,”
and the rest.

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3

And although I have never seen him since he was
twelve years old, when his parents died and he went to
London (as most of my life has been spent abroad), I re¬
ceived occasional letters from him.

I have also been able to obtain much information
about him from others, especially from a relative of the
late “ Mr. and Mrs. Lintot,” who knew him well, and from
several officers in his regiment who remembered him ; also
from the “ Vicar’s daughter,” whom he met at “ Lady
Cray’s,” and who perfectly recollects the conversation she
had with him at dinner, his sudden indisposition, and his
long interview with the “ Duchess of Towers, under the
ash -tree next morning ; she was one of the croquet-
players.

He was the most beautiful boy I ever saw, and so
charming, lively, and amiable that everybody was fond of
him. He had a horror of cruelty, especially to animals
(quite singular in a boy of his age), and was very truthful
and brave.

According to all accounts (and from a photograph in
my possession) he grew up to be as handsome as a man
can well be, a personal gift which he seems to have held
of no account whatever, though he thought so much of it
in others. But he also became singularly shy and reserved
in manner, over-diffident and self-distrustful , of a melan¬
choly disposition, loving solitude, living much alone, and
taking nobody into his confidence, and yet inspiring both
affection and respect. For he seems to have always been
thoroughly gentleman-like in speech, bearing, manner, and
aspect.

It is possible, although he does not say so, that having
first enlisted, and then entered upon a professional careei

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under somewhat inauspicious conditions, he felt himself to
have fallen away from the social rank (such as it was) that
belonged to him by birth ; and he may have found his
associates uncongenial.

His old letters to me are charmingly open and effusive.

Of the lady whom (keeping her title and altering her
name) I have called the “Duchess of Towers,” I find it
difficult to speak. That they only met twice, and in the
way he describes, is a fact about which there can be no
doubt.

It is also indubitable that he received in Newgate, on
the morning after his sentence to death, an envelope con¬
taining violets, and the strange message he mentions.
Both letter and violets are in my possession, and the
words are in her handwriting ; about that there can be
no mistake.

It is certain, moreover, that she separated from her
husband almost immediately after my cousin’s trial and
condemnation, and lived in comparative retirement from
the world, as it is certain that he went suddenly mad

twenty-five years later in - Jail, a few hours after her

tragic death, and before he could possibly have heard of it

by the ordinary channels ; and that he was sent to _

Asylum, where, after his frenzy had subsided, he remained
for many days in a state of suicidal melancholia, until, to
the surprise of all, he rose one morning in high spirits, and
apparently cured of all serious symptoms of insanity ,• so
he remained until his death. It was during the last year
of his life that he wrote his autobiography, in French and
English.

^ here is nothing to be surprised at, taking all the cir¬
cumstances into consideration, that even so great a lady,

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the friend of queens and empresses, the bearer of a high
title and an illustrious name, justly celebrated for her
beauty and charm (and her endless charities), of blameless
repute, and one of the most popular women in English
society, should yet have conceived a very warm regard for
my poor cousin ; indeed, it was an open secret in the
family of “ Lord Cray ” that she had done so. But for
them she would have taken the whole world into her
confidence.

After her death she left him what money had come to
her from her father, which he disposed of for charitable
ends, and an immense quantity of MS. in cipher — a cipher
which is evidently identical with that he used himself in
the annotations he put under innumerable sketches he
was allowed to make during his long period of confine¬
ment, which (through her interest, and no doubt through
his own good conduct) was rendered as bearable to him
as possible. These sketches (which are very extraor¬
dinary) and her Grace’s MS. are now in my possession.

They constitute a mystery into which I have not
dared to pry.

From papers belonging to both I have been able to
establish beyond doubt the fact (so strangely discovered)
of their descent from a common French ancestress, whose
name I have but slightly modified, and the tradition of
whom still lingers in the “ Departement de la Sarthe,”
where she was a famous person a century ago ; and her
violin, a valuable Amati, now belongs to me.

Of the non-natural part of his story I will not say
much.

It is, of course, a fact that he had been absolutely and,
to all appearance, incurably insane before he wrote his life.

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There seems to have been a difference of opinion, or
rather a doubt, among the authorities of the asylum as to
whether he was mad after the acute but very violent
period of his brief attack had ended.

Whichever may have been the case, I am at least con¬
vinced of this : that he was no romancer, and thoroughly
believed in the extraordinary mental experience he has
revealed.

At the risk of being thought to share his madness —
if he was mad — I will conclude by saying that I, for one,
believe him to have been sane, and to have told the truth
all through. Madge PLUNKET.

happiest and most privilegi
if he perseveres to the end.

AM but a poor scribe, ill
versed in the craft of wield¬
ing words and phrases, as
the cultivated reader (if I
should ever happen to have
one) will no doubt very soon
find out for himself.

I have been for many
years an object of pity and
contempt to all who ever
gave me a thought — to all
but one ! Yet of all that
ever lived on this earth I
have been, perhaps, the
, as that reader will discover

My outer and my inner life have been as the very
poles — asunder ; and if, at the eleventh hour, I have made

PETER IBBETSON

7

up my mind to give my story to the world, it is not in
order to rehabilitate myself in the eyes of my fellowmen,
deeply as I value their good opinion ; for I have always
loved them and wished them well, and would fain express
my goodwill and win theirs, if that were possible.

It is because the regions where I have found my
felicity are accessible to all, and that many, better trained
and better gifted, will explore them to far better purpose
than I, and to the greater glory and benefit of mankind,
when once I have given them the clue. Before I can do
this, and in order to show how I came by this clue myself,

I must tell, as well as I may, the tale of my chequered
career — in telling which, moreover, I am obeying the last
behest of one whose lightest wish was my law.

If I am more prolix than I need be, it must be set
down to my want of experience in the art of literary com¬
position— to a natural wish I have to show myself neither
better nor worse than I believe myself to be ; to the
charm, the unspeakable charm, that personal reminiscences
have for the person principally concerned, and which he
cannot hope to impart, however keenly he may feel it,
without gifts and advantages that have been denied to me.

And this leads me to apologise for the egotism of this
Memoir, which is but an introduction to another and
longer one that I hope to publish later. To write a story
of paramount importance to mankind, it is true, but all
about one’s outer and one’s inner self, to do this without
seeming somewhat egotistical, requires something akin to
genius — and I am but a poor scribe.

“ Combien j’ai douce souvenance
Du joli lieu de ma naissance ! ”

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These quaint lines have been running in my head at
intervals through nearly all my outer life, like an oft-
recurring burden in an endless ballad — sadly monotonous,
alas 1 the ballad, which is mine ; sweetly monotonous the
burden, which is by Chateaubriand.

I sometimes think that to feel the full significance of
this refrain one must have passed one’s childhood in sunny
France, where it was written, and the remainder of one’s
existence in mere London — or worse than mere London
— as has been the case with me. If I had spent all my
life from infancy upward in Bloomsbury, or Clerkenwell,
or Whitechapel, my early days would be shorn of much
of their retrospective glamour as I look back on them in
these my after-years.

“ Combien j’ai douce souvenance ! ”

It was on a beautiful June morning in a charming
French garden, where the warm, sweet atmosphere was
laden with the scent of lilac and syringa, and gay with
butterflies and dragonflies and humble-bees, that I began my
conscious existence with the happiest day of all my outer
life.

It is true that I had vague memories (with many a
blank between) of a dingy house in the heart of London,
in a long street of desolating straightness, that led to a
dreary square and back again, and nowhere else for me ;
and then of a troubled and exciting journey that seemed of
jumbled days and nights. I could recall the blue stage¬
coach with the four tall, thin, brown horses, so quiet and
modest and well-behaved ; the red-coated guard and his
horn ; the red-faced driver and his husky voice and many
capes. Then the steamer with its glistening deck, so

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9

beautiful and white, it seemed quite a desecration to walk
upon it — this spotlessness did not last very long ; and
then two wooden piers with a lighthouse on each, and a
quay, and blue -bloused workmen and red-legged little
soldiers with mustaches, and bare-legged fishenvomen, all
speaking a language that I knew as well as the other
commoner language I had left behind ; but which I had
always looked upon as an exclusive possession of my
father’s and mother’s and mine for the exchange of sweet
confidence and the bewilderment of outsiders ; and here
were little boys and girls in the street, quite common
children, who spoke it as well and better than I did
myself.

After this came the dream of a strange, huge, top-
heavy vehicle, that seemed like three yellow carriages
stuck together, and a mountain of luggage at the top
under an immense black tarpaulin, which ended in a hood ;
and beneath the hood sat a blue -bloused man with a
singular cap like a concertina, and mustaches, who cracked
a loud whip over five squealing, fussy, pugnacious white
and gray horses, with bells on their necks and bushy fox¬
tails on their foreheads, and their own tails carefully tucked
up behind.

From the coupe where I sat with my father and mother
I could watch them well as they led us through dusty
roads with endless apple-trees or poplars on either side.
Little barefooted urchins (whose papas and mammas wore
wooden shoes and funny white nightcaps) ran after us for
French halfpennies, which were larger than English ones,
and pleasanter to have and to hold. Up hill and down we
went ; over sounding wooden bridges, through roughly
paved streets in pretty towns to large courtyards, where

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out of a doze I could see the glare of the red lamps on
the five straining white and gray backs that dragged us so
gallantly through the dark summer night.

1 hen it all became rather tiresome and intermittent
and confused, till we reached at dusk next day a quay
by a broad river ; and as we drove along it, under thick
trees, we met other red and blue and green lamped, five-

five other quarrelsome steeds, gray and white, were waiting
to take the place of the old ones — worn out, but quar¬
relling still !

And through the night I could hear the gay music of
the bells and hoofs, the rumbling of the wheels, the
cracking of the eternal whip, as I fidgeted from one
familiar lap to the other in search of sleep ; and waking

“A STRANGE, HUGE, TOP-HEAVY VEHICLE."

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ii

horsed diligences starting on their long journey just as ours
was coming to an end.

Then I knew (because I was a well-educated little boy,
and heard my father exclaim, “ Here’s Paris at last ! ”)
that we had entered the capital of France — a fact that
impressed me very much — so much, it seems, that I went
to sleep for thirty-six hours at a stretch, and woke up to
find myself in the garden I have mentioned, and to
retain possession of that self without break or solution of
continuity (except when I went to sleep again) until now.

The happiest day in all my outer life !

For in an old shed full of tools and lumber, at the end of
the garden, and half-way between an empty fowl-house
and a disused stable (each an Eden in itself), I found a
small toy wheelbarrow — quite the most extraordinary, the
most unheard-of and undreamed-of, humorously, daintily,
exquisitely fascinating object I had ever come across in all
my brief existence.

I spent hours — enchanted hours — in wheeling brick¬
bats from the stable to the fowl-house, and more enchanted
hours in wheeling them all back again, while genial French
workmen, who were busy in and out of the house
where we were to live, stopped every now and then to
ask good-natured questions of the “ p’tit Anglais,’ and
commend his knowledge of their tongue, and his re¬
markable skill in the management of a wheelbarrow.
Well I remember wondering, with newly aroused self-
consciousness, at the intensity, the poignancy, the ex¬
tremity of my bliss, and looking forward with happy
confidence to an endless succession of such hours in the
future.

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But next morning, though the weather was as fine,
and the wheelbarrow and the brick-bats and the genial

workmen were there, and all the scents and sights and
sounds were the same, the first fine careless rapture was

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13

not to be caught again, and the glory and the freshness
had departed.

Thus did I, on the very dawning of life, reach at a
single tide the high-water mark of my earthly bliss —
never to be reached again by me on this side of the ivory

gate _ and discover that to make the perfection of human

happiness endure there must be something more than a
sweet French garden, a small French wheelbarrow, and a
nice little English boy who spoke French and had the
love of approbation — a fourth dimension is required.

I found it in due time.

But if there were no more enchanted hours like the
first, there were to be seven happy years that have the
quality of enchantment as I look back on them.

Oh, the beautiful garden ! Roses, nasturtiums, and
convolvulus, wall -flowers, sweet -peas, and carnations,
marigolds and sunflowers, dahlias and pansies, and
hollyhocks, and poppies, and Heaven knows what besides !
In my fond recollection they all bloom at once, inespective
of time and season.

To see and smell and pick all these for the first time
at the susceptible age of five ! To inherit such a king¬
dom after five years of Gower Street and Bedford Square !
For all things are relative, and everything depends upon
the point of view. To the owner of Chatsworth (and to
his gardeners) my beautiful French garden would have
seemed a small affair.

And what a world of insects— Chatsworth could not
beat these (indeed is, no doubt, sadly lacking in. them !)
beautiful, interesting, comic, grotesque, and terrible ; from

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the proud humble-bee to the earwig and his cousin the
devil’s coach-horse ; and all those rampant, many-footed
things that pullulate in damp and darkness under big
flat stones. To think that I have been friends with all
these — roses and centipedes and all — and then to think
that most of my outer life has been spent between bare
whitewashed walls, with never even a flea or a spider to
be friends with again !

Our house (where, by the way, I had been born five
years before), an old yellow house, with green shutters
and Mansard roofs of slate, stood between this garden and
the street — a long winding street, roughly flagged, with
oil lamps suspended across at long intervals ; these lamps
were let down with pulleys at dusk, replenished and lit,
and then hauled up again, to make darkness visible for a
few hours on nights when the moon was away.

Opposite to us was a boys’ school — “ Maison d’Edu-
cation, Dirigee par M. Jules Saindou, Bachelier et Maitre
es Lettres et es Sciences,” and author of a treatise on
geology, with such hauntingly terrific pictures of ante¬
diluvian reptiles battling in the primeval slime that I
have never been able to forget them. My father, who
was fond of science, made me a present of it on my sixth
birthday. It cost me many a nightmare.

From our windows we could see and hear the boys at
play — at a proper distance French boys sound just like
English ones, though they do not look so, on account of
their blue blouses and dusky cropped heads — and we
could see the gymnastic fixtures in the playground, M.
Saindou’s pride. “ Fe portique ! la poutre ! ! le cheval ! ! !
et les barres parallels ! ! ! ! ” Thus they were described
in M. Saindou’s prospectus.

PETER /BRETS ON

IS

On either side of the street (which was called “ the
Street of the Pump ”), as far as eye could reach looking
west, were dwelling-houses just like our own, only agree¬
ably different ; and garden walls overtopped with the
foliage of horse-chestnut, sycamore, acacia, and lime ; and
here and there huge portals and iron gates defended by
posts of stone gave ingress to mysterious abodes of brick
and plaster and granite, many-shuttered, and embosomed
in sun-shot greenery.

Looking east, one could see in the near distance
unsophisticated shops, with' old-fashioned windows of
many panes — Liard, the grocer ; Corbin, the poulterer ;
the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker.

And this delightful street, as it went on its winding
way, led not to Bedford Square or the new University
College Hospital, but to Paris through the Arc de
Triomphe at one end, and to the river Seine at the
other ; or else, turning to the right, to St. Cloud through
the Bois de Boulogne of Louis Philippe Premier, Roi des
Francais — as different from the Paris and the Bois de
Boulogne of to-day as a diligence from an express train.

On one side of the beautiful garden was another beau¬
tiful garden, separated from ours by a high wall covered
with peach and pear and plum and apricot trees ; on the
other, accessible to us through a small door in another
lower wall clothed with jasmine, clematis, convolvulus, and
nasturtium, was a long straight avenue of almond trees,
acacia, laburnum, lilac, and may, so closely planted that
the ivy -grown walls on either side could scarcely be
seen. What lovely patches they made on the ground
when the sun shone ! One end of this abutted on “ the
Street of the Pump,” from which it was fenced by tall

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elaborately carved iron gates between stone portals, and
at the side was a “ porte batarde,” guarded by le Pere et
la Mere Francois, the old concierge and his old wife. Peace
to their ashes, and Heaven rest their kindly, genial souls !

The other end of the avenue, where there was also an
iron gate, admitted to a large private park that seemed
to belong to nobody, and of which we were free — a very
wilderness of delight, a heaven, a terror of tangled thickets
and not too dangerous chalk cliffs, disused old quarries,
and dark caverns, prairies of lush grass, sedgy pools,
turnip fields, forests of pine, groves and avenues of horse-
chestnut, dank valleys of walnut trees and hawthorn,
which summer made dark at noon ; bare, wind-swept,
mountainous regions whence one could reconnoitre afar ;
all sorts of wild and fearsome places for savages and wild
beasts to hide and small boys to roam quite safely in
quest of perilous adventure.

All this vast enclosure (full of strange singing, hum¬
ming, whistling, buzzing, twittering, cooing, booming,
croaking, flying, creeping, crawling, jumping, climbing,
burrowing, splashing, diving things) had been neglected
for ages — an Eden where one might gather and eat of
the fruit of the tree of knowledge without fear, and learn
lovingly the ways of life without losing one’s innocence ;
a forest that had remade for itself a new virginity, and
become primeval once more ; where beautiful Nature
had reasserted her own sweet will, and massed and
tangled everything together as though a Beauty had been
sleeping there undisturbed for close on a hundred years,
and was only waiting for the charming Prince— or, as it
turned out a few years later, alas ! the speculative builder
and the railway engineer — those princes of our day.

PETER IB BETS ON

1 7

My fond remembrance would tell me that this region
was almost boundless, well as I remember its boundaries.
My knowledge of physical geography, as applied to this
particular suburb of Paris, bids me assign more modest
limits to this earthly paradise, which again was separated
by an easily surmounted fence from Louis Philippe’s
Bois de Boulogne ; and to this I cannot find it in my
heart to assign any limits whatever, except the pretty old
town from which it takes its name, and whose principal
street leads to that magical combination of river, bridge,
palace, gardens, mountain, and forest, St. Cloud.

What more could be wanted for a small boy fresh (if
such be freshness) from the very heart of Bloomsbury ?

That not a single drop should be lacking to the full cup
of that small boy’s felicity, there was a pond on the way
from Passy to St. Cloud, a memorable pond, called “ La
Mare d’Auteuil,” the sole aquatic treasure that Louis
Philippe’s Bois de Boulogne could boast. For in those
ingenuous days there existed no artificial lake fed by an
artificial stream, no pre-Catelan, no Jardin d’Acclimata-
tion. The wood was just a wood, and nothing more — a
dense, wild wood, that covered many hundreds of acres,
and sheltered many thousands of wild live things. Though
mysteriously deep in the middle, this famous pond (which
may have been centuries old, and still exists) was not
large ; you might almost fling a stone across it anywhere.

Bounded on three sides by the forest (now shorn
away), it was just hidden from the dusty road by a fringe
of trees ; and one could have it all to one’s self, except on
Sunday and Thursday afternoons, when a few lovesick
Parisians remembered its existence, and in its loveliness
forgot their own.

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To be there at all was to be happy ; for not only was
it quite the most secluded, picturesque, and beautiful pond
in all the habitable globe — that pond of ponds, the only
pond — but it teemed with a far greater number and
variety of wonderful insects and reptiles than any other
pond in the world. Such, at least, I believed must be
the case, for they were endless.

To watch these creatures, to learn their ways, to catch
them (which we sometimes did), to take them home and
be kind to them, and try to tame them, and teach them
our ways (with never-varying non-success, it is true, but
in, oh, such jolly company !), became a hobby that lasted
me, on and off, for seven years.

La Mare d’Auteuil ! The very name has a magic,
from all the associations that gathered round it during
that time, to cling for ever.

How I loved it ! At night, snoozing in my warm
bed, I would awesomely think of it, and how solemn it
looked when I had reluctantly left it at dusk, an hour or
two before ; then I would picture it to myself, later, lying
deep and cold and still under the stars, in the dark thicket,
with all that weird, uncanny life seething beneath its stag¬
nant surface.

Then gradually the water would sink, and the reeds,
left naked, begin to move and rustle ominously, and from
among their roots in the uncovered slush everything alive
would make for the middle — hopping, gliding, writhing
frantically. . . .

Down shrank the water ; and soon in the slimy bot¬
tom, yards below, huge fat salamanders, long-lost and for¬
gotten tadpoles as large as rats, gigantic toads, enormous
flat beetles, all kinds of hairy, scaly, spiny, blear-eyed,

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bulbous, shapeless monsters without name, mud-coloured
offspring of the mire that had been sleeping there for
hundreds of years, woke up, and crawled in and out, and
wallowed and interwriggled, and devoured each other, like
the great saurians and batrachians in my Manuel de Geo¬
logic Elementaire. Edition illustree a l’usage des enfants.
Par Jules Saindou, Bachelier et Maitre es Lettres et es
Sciences.

Then would I wake up with a start, in a cold perspira¬
tion, an icy chill shooting through me that roughed my
skin and stirred the roots of my hair, and ardently wish
for to-morrow morning.

In after years, and far away among the cold fogs of
Clerkenwell, when the frequent longing would come over
me to revisit “ the pretty place of my birth,” it was for
the Mare d’Auteuil I longed the most ; that was the load¬
star, the very pole of my homesick desires ; always thither
the wings of my hopeless fancy bore me first of all ; it
was, oh ! to tread that sunlit grassy brink once more, and
to watch the merry tadpoles swarm, and the green frog
take its header like a little man, and the water-rat swim
to his hole among the roots of the willow, and the horse¬
leech thread his undulating way between the water-lily
stems ; and to dream fondly of the delightful, irrevocable
past, on the very spot of all where I and mine were always
happiest !

“ . . . . Qu’ils etaient beaux, les jours
De France ! ”

In the avenue I have mentioned (the avenue, as it is
still to me, and as I will always call it) there was on the
right hand, half the way up, a maison de sante, or boarding-

n n r mm /snx

21

house, kept b) oih' Madame Pole , and them among other
( amt' to board and lodge, a short while after our advent,
tom 01 five gentlemen who had fried to invade t rance,
with a certain grim Pretender at their hear!, and a tame
eagle as a symbol of empire to rally round

The expedition had failed ; the Pretender t ;ad been
consigned to a fortress ; the eagle had found a home-
in the public slaughter house of Boulogne m-Mer, which
it adorned for many years, and where it fed as jt had
never probably fed before ; and these, the faithful foJ
lowers, le Colonel Yoisil, le Major f tuqnesnoia, le Capj taint
Audenis, le Docteui Lombal (and one or two cite n whose
names I have forgotten), were prisoner ■ on parole at
Madame Pole's, and did not seem to find their durance
very vile.

J grew to know and love them all, especially the
Major Duquesnois, an almost literal translate* into french
of Colonel Newcome. He took to me at once, in spite of
my Knglishness, and drilled me, and taught cue the exer¬
cise as it was performed in the Vieille Garde ; and told
me a new lair)’ tale, I verily believe, every afternoon for
seven years. Schehere/ade could do no more for a Sultan,
and to save her own neck from the bowstring ‘

Cher et bien aime “ Vieux de la Vie,;.'- w with hr- big
iron-gray mustache, his black satin stock. Ins spotless linen
his long green frockcoat so baggy about the skirts, and the
smart red ribbon in his button hole! He .Jttle foresaw
with what warm and affectionate regard his memory wouM
be kept for ever sweet and green in the heart of his heredi¬
tary foe and small Knglish tyrant and companion 1

. . , « t * •

Opposite Madame Pole's, and the only other dwelling

“ PKESENTEZ ARMES ! ”

PETER IB BETS ON

23

besides hers and ours in the avenue, was a charming little
white villa with a Grecian portico, on which were inscribed
in letters of gold the words “ Parva sed Apta but it was
not tenanted till two or three years after our arrival.

In the genial French fashion of those times we soon
got on terms of intimacy with these and other neighbours,
and saw much of each other at all times of the day.

My tall and beautiful young mother (la belle Madame
Pasquier, as she was gallantly called) was an English¬
woman who had been born and partly brought up in
Paris.

My gay and jovial father (le beau Pasquier, for he was
also tall and comely to the eye) was a Frenchman, although
an English subject, who had been born and partly brought
up in London ; for he was the child of emigres from
France during the Reign of Terror.

He was gifted with a magnificent, a phenomenal voice
— a barytone and tenor rolled into one ; a marvel of rich¬
ness, sweetness, flexibility, and power — and had intended
to sing at the opera; indeed, he had studied for three
years at the Paris Conservatoire to that end ; and there he
had carried all before him, and given rise to the highest
hopes. But his family, who were Catholics of the black¬
est and Legitimists of the whitest dye — and as poor as
church rats — had objected to such a godless and deroga¬
tory career ; so the world lost a great singer, and the great
singer a mine of wealth and fame.

However, he had just enough to live upon, and had
married a wife (a heretic !) who had just about as much,
or as little ; and he spent his time, and both his money
and hers, in scientific inventions — to little purpose, for
well as he had learned how to sing, he had not been

24

PETER I BEETS ON

to any conservatoire where they teach one how to
invent.

1 When in death I shall calm recline,

Oh take my heart to my mistress dear !
Tell her it lived upon smiles and wine

Of the brightest hue while it lingered here !

So that, as he waited “ for his ship to come home,”
he sang only to amuse his wife, as they say the night-

PETER IB BETS ON

ingale does ; and to ease himself of superfluous energy,
and to charm the servants, and le Pere et la Mere
Francois, and the five followers of Napoleon, and all and
everybody who cared to listen, and last and least (and
most !), myself.

For this great neglected gift of his, on which he set so
little store, was already to me the most beautiful and
mysterious thing in the world ; and next to this, my
mother’s sweet playing on the harp and piano, for she
was an admirable musician.

It was her custom to play at night, leaving the door
of my bedroom ajar, and also the drawing-room door,
so that I could hear her till I fell asleep.

Sometimes, when my father was at home, the spirit
would move him to hum or sing the airs she played, as
he paced up and down the room on the track of a new
invention.

And though he sang and hummed “ pian -piano,”
the sweet, searching, manly tones seemed to fill all
space.

The hushed house became a sounding-board, the
harp a mere subservient tinkle, and my small, excitable
frame would thrill and vibrate under the waves of my
unconscious father’s voice ; and oh, the charming airs he
sang !

His stock was inexhaustible, and so was hers ; and
thus an endless succession of lovely melodies went ringing
through that happy period.

And just as when a man is drowning, or falling from
a height, his whole past life is said to be mapped out
before his mental vision as in a single flash, so seven
years of sweet, priceless home love — seven times four

26

PETER I BEETS ON

changing seasons of simple, genial, prae-imperial French¬
ness ; an ideal house, with all its pretty furniture, and
shape, and colour ; a garden full of trees and flowers ;
a large park, and all the wild live things therein ; a
town and its inhabitants ; a mile or two of historic river ;
a wood big enough to reach from the Arc de Triomphe
to St. Cloud (and in it the pond of ponds) ; and every
wind and weather that the changing seasons can bring
— all lies embedded and embalmed for me in every
single bar of at least a hundred different tunes, to be
evoked at will for the small trouble and cost of just
whistling or humming the same, or even playing it
with one finger on the piano — when I had a piano within
reach.

Enough to last me for a lifetime — with proper
economy, of course — it will not do to exhaust, by too
frequent experiment, the strange capacity of a melodic
bar for preserving the essence of bygone things, and days
that are no more.

O Nightingale ! whether thou singest thyself, or,
better still, if thy voice be not in thy throat, but in
thy fiery heart and subtle brain, and thou makest songs
for the singing of many others, blessed be thy name !
The very sound of it is sweet in every clime and
tongue: Nightingale, Rossignol, Usignuolo, Bulbul ! Even
Nachtigall does not sound amiss in the mouth of a fair
English girl who has had a Hanoverian for a governess.
And, indeed, it is in the Nachtigall’s country that the
best music is made.

And O Nightingale ! never, never grudge thy song
to those who love it — nor waste it upon those who do
not. . . .

PETER IBBETSON

27

Thus serenaded, I would close my eyes, and lapped
in darkness and warmth and heavenly sound, be lulled
asleep — perchance to dream !

For my early childhood was
often haunted by a dream, which
at first I took for a reality — a
transcendent dream of some in¬
terest and importance to
mankind, as the patient
reader will admit in time.
But many years of my
life passed away before I

“o nightingale!"

was able to explain and account for it.

I had but to turn my face to the wall, and soon I
found myself in company with a lady who had white
hair and a young face — a very beautiful young face.

Sometimes I walked with her, hand in hand I being
quite a small child — and together we fed innumeiable

28

PETER I BEETS ON

pigeons who lived in a tower by a winding stream that
ended in a water-mill. It was too lovely, and I would
wake.

Sometimes we went into a dark place, where there
was a fiery furnace with many holes, and many people
working and moving about — among them a man with
white hair and a young face, like the lady, and beautiful
red heels to his shoes. And under his guidance I would
contrive to make in the furnace a charming little cocked
hat of coloured glass — a treasure ! And the sheer joy
thereof would wake me.

Sometimes the white-haired lady and I would sit
together at a square box from which she made lovely
music, and she would sing my favourite song — a song
that I adored. But I always woke before this song came
to an end, on account of the too insupportably intense
bliss I felt on hearing it ; and all I could remember
when awake were the words “ triste — comment — sale.”

The air, which I knew so well in my dream, I could
not recall.

It seemed as though some innermost core of my
being, some childish holy of holies, secreted a source
of supersubtie reminiscence, which, under some stimulus
that now and again became active during sleep, exhaled
itself in this singular dream — shadowy and slight, but
invariably accompanied by a sense of felicity so measure¬
less and so penetrating that I would always wake in a
mystic flutter of ecstasy, the bare remembrance of which
was enough to bless and make happy many a succeeding
hour.

Besides this happy family of three, close by (in the

PETER I BEETS ON

29

Street of the Tower) lived my grandmother, Mrs. Bid-
dulph, and my Aunt Plunket, a widow, with her two
sons, Alfred and Charlie, and her daughter Madge. They
also were fair to look at — extremely so — of the gold¬
haired, white -skinned, well -grown Anglo-Saxon type,
with frank, open, jolly manners, and no beastly British
pride.

So that, physically at least, we reflected much credit
on the English name, which was not in good odour just
then at Passy-les-Paris, where Waterloo was unforgotten.
In time, however, our nationality was condoned on account
of our good looks — “ non Angli sed angeli ! ” as M.
Saindou was gallantly pleased to exclaim when he called
(with a prospectus of his school) and found us all gathered
together under the big apple-tree on our lawn.

But English beauty in Passy was soon to receive a
memorable addition to its ranks in the person of a
certain Madame Seraskier, who came with an invalid
little daughter to live in the house so modestly desciibed

O

in gold as “ Parva sed Apta.”

She was the English, or rather the Irish, wife of a
Hungarian patriot and man of science, Dr. Seraskier (son
of the famous violinist) ; an extremely tall, thin man,
almost gigantic, with a grave, benevolent face, and a head
like a prophet’s ; who was, like my father, very much
away from his family — conspiring perhaps — or perhaps
only inventing (like my father), and looking out foi his
ship to come home ” !

This fair lady’s advent was a sensation — to me a
sensation that never palled or wore itself away , it was

3°

PETER IB BETS ON

no longer now “ la belle Madame Pasquier,” but “ la
divine Madame Seraskier ” — beauty-blind as the French
are apt to be.

She topped my tall mother by more than half a head ;

as was remarked by Madame
Pele, whose similes were all of
the kitchen and dining-room,
“ elle lui mangerait des petits
pates sur la tete ! ” And height,
that lends dignity to ugliness,
magnifies beauty on a scale of
geometrical progression — 2, 4,
8, 16,3 2 — for every consecutive
inch, between five feet five, let
us say and five feet ten or eleven
(or thereabouts), which I take
to have been Madame Seraskier’s
measurement.

She had black hair and
blue eyes — of the kind that
turns violet in a novel — and
a beautiful white skin, lovely
hands and feet, a perfect
figure, and features chiselled
and finished and polished and
turned out with such singular
felicitousness that one gazed
she topped my tall mother. anh gazed till the heart was full

of a strange jealous resentment
at any one else having the right to gaze on something so
rare, so divinely, so sacredly fair— any one in the world
but one’s self!

PETER IB BETS ON

3i

But a woman can be all this without being Madame
Seraskier — she was much more.

For the warmth and genial kindness of her nature
shone through her eyes and rang in her voice. All was
of a piece with her — her simplicity, her grace, her natural¬
ness and absence of vanity ; her courtesy, her sympathy,
her mirthfulness.

I do not know which was the most irresistible : she
had a slight Irish accent when she spoke English, a less
slight English accent when she spoke French !

I made it my business to acquire both.

Indeed, she was in heart and mind and body what we
should all be but for the lack of a little public spirit and
self-denial (under proper guidance) during the last few
hundred years on the part of a few thousand millions of
our improvident fellow-creatures.

There should be no available ugly frames for beautiful
souls to be hurried into by carelessness or mistake, and
no ugly souls should be suffered to creep, like hermit-
crabs, into beautiful shells never intended for them. The
outward and visible form should mark the inward and
spiritual grace ; that it seldom does so is a fact there is
no gainsaying. Alas ! such beauty is such an exception
that its possessor, like a prince of the blood royal, is
pampered and spoiled from the very cradle, and eveiy
good and generous and unselfish impulse is corroded by
adulation — that spontaneous tribute so lightly won, so
quickly paid, and accepted so royally as a due.

So that only when by Heaven’s grace the veiy beautiful
are also very good, is it time for us to go down on oui
knees, and say our prayers in thankfulness and adoiation ,
for the divine has been permitted to make itself manifest

PETER IB BETS ON

for a while in the perishable likeness of our poor
humanity.

A beautiful face ! a beautiful tune ! Earth holds
nothing to beat these, and of such, for want of better
materials, we have built for ourselves the kingdom of
Heaven.

“ Plus oblige, et peut davantage
Un beau visage
Qu’un homme arme —

Et rien n’est meilleur que d’entendre
Air doux et tendre
Jadis aimd ! ”

My mother soon became the passionately devoted friend
of the divine Madame Seraskier ; and I, what would I not
have done — what danger would I not have faced — what
death would I not have died for her !

I did not die ; I lived her protestant to be, for nearly
fifty years. For nearly fifty years to recollect the rapture
and the pain it was to look at her ; that inexplicable
longing ache, that dumb, delicious, complex, innocent
distress, for which none but the greatest poets have ever
found expression ; and which, perhaps, they have not felt
half so acutely, these glib and gifted ones, as / did, at the
susceptible ages of seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and
twelve.

She had other slaves of my sex. The five Napoleonic
heroes did homage each after his fashion : the good Major
with a kind of sweet fatherly tenderness touching to behold ;
the others with perhaps less unselfish adoration ; notably
the brave Capitaine Audenis, of the fair waxed mustache
and beautiful brown tail coat, so tightly buttoned with

PETER IB BETS ON

33

gilt buttons across his enormous chest, and imperceptible
little feet so tightly imprisoned in shiny tipped female
cloth boots, with buttons of mother-of-pearl; whose
hobby was, I believe, to try and compensate himself for
the misfortunes of war by more successful attempts in
another direction. Anyhow he betrayed a warmth that
made my small bosom a Gehenna, until she laughed and
snubbed him into due propriety and shamefaced self-
effacement.

It soon became evident that she favoured two, at least,
out of all this little masculine world — the Major and
myself ; and a strange trio we made.

Her poor little daughter, the object of her passionate
solicitude, a very clever and precocious child, was the
reverse of beautiful, although she would have had fine
eyes but for her red lashless lids. She wore her thick
hair cropped short, like a boy, and was pasty and sallow
in complexion, hollow-cheeked, thick-featured, and over¬
grown, with long thin hands and feet, and arms and legs
of quite pathetic length and tenuity ; a silent and melan¬
choly little girl, who sucked her thumb perpetually, and
kept her own counsel. She would have to lie in bed for
days together, and when she got well enough to sit up, I
(to please her mother) would read to her Le Robinson
Suisse, Sandford and Merton, Evenings at Home, Les
Contes de Perrault , the shipwreck from “Don Juan,” of
which we never tired, and the “ Giaour,” the “ Corsair,’
and “Mazeppa”; and last, but not least, Peter Parleys
Natural History, which we got to know by heart.

And out of this latter volume I would often declaim
for her benefit what has always been to me the most
beautiful poem in the world, possibly because it was the

D

34

PETER IB BETS ON

first I read for myself, or else because it is so intimately
associated with those happy days. Under an engraving
of a wild duck (after Bewick, I believe) were quoted
W. C. Bryant’s lines “ To a Waterfowl.” They charmed me
then and charm me now as nothing else has quite charmed
me ; I become a child again as I think of them, with
a child’s virgin subtlety of perception and magical
susceptibility to vague suggestions of the Infinite.

Poor little Mimsey Seraskier would listen with distended
eyes and quick comprehension. She had a strange fancy
that a pair of invisible beings, “ La fee Tarapatapoum,”
and “ Le Prince Charmant ” (two favourite characters of
M. le Major’s) were always in attendance upon us- — upon
her and me — and were equally fond of us both ; that is,
“La fee Tarapatapoum” of me, and “Le Prince Charmant”
of her — and watched over us and would protect us through
life.

“ O ! ils sont joliment bien ensemble, tous les deux —
ils sont inseparables ! ” she would often exclaim, apropos
of these visionary beings ; and apropos of the waterfowl
she would say —

“ II aime beaucoup cet oiseau-la, le Prince Charmant !
dis encore, quand il vole si haut, et qu’il fait froid, et qu’il
est fatigue, et que la nuit vient, mais qu’il ne veut pas
descendre ! ”

And I would re-spout —

“ ‘ All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night be near ! ’ ”

And poor, morbid, precocious, overwrought Mimsey’s eyes

PETER IB BETS ON

35

would fill, and she would meditatively suck her thumb and
think unutterable things.

And then I would copy Bewick’s woodcuts for her,
as she sat on the arm of my chair and patiently watched ;
and she would say : “ La fee Tarapatapoum trouve que tu
dessines dans la perfection ! ” and treasure up these little
masterpieces — “pour l’album de la fee Tarapatapoum !”

There was one drawing she prized above all others — a
steel engraving in a volume of Byron, which represented
two beautiful beings of either sex, walking hand in hand
through a dark cavern. The man was in sailor’s garb ;
the lady, who went barefoot and lightly clad, held a torch ;
and underneath was written —

“ And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand,

And waved along the vaults her flaming brand.”

I spent hours in copying it for her, and she preferred the
copy to the original, and would have it that the two figures
were excellent portraits of her Prince and Fairy.

Sometimes during these readings and sketchings under
the apple-tree on the lawn, the sleeping Medor (a huge
nondescript sort of dog, built up of every breed in France,
with the virtues of all and the vices of none) would wag
his three inches of tail, and utter soft whimperings of
welcome in his dream ; and she would say —

“ C’est le Prince Charmant qui lui dit ; ‘ Medor, donne
la patte ! ’ ”

Or our old tomcat would rise from his slumbers with
his tail up, and rub an imaginary skirt ; and it was —

“ Regarde Mistigris ! La fee Tarapatapoum est en
train de lui frotter les oreilles ! ”

We mostly spoke French, in spite of strict injunctions

UNDER THE APPLE-TREE WITH THE PRINCE AND FAIRY.

PETER IB BETS ON

37

to the contrary from our fathers and mothers, who
were much concerned lest we should forget English
altogether.

In time we made a kind of ingenious compromise ;
for Mimsey, who was full of resource, invented a new
language, which we called Frankingle and Inglefrank, re¬
spectively. They consisted in anglicising French nouns
and verbs and then conjugating and pronouncing them
Englishly, or vice versa.

For instance, it was very cold, and the schoolroom
window was open, so she would say in Frankingle —

“ Dispeach yourself to ferm the feneeter, Gogo. It
geals to pier-fend ! we shall be inrhumed !” or else, if I
failed to immediately understand — “ Gogo, il frise a splitter
les stonnes — maque aste et chute le vindeau ; mais chute
— le done vite ! Je snize deja ! ” which was Inglefrank.

With this contrivance we managed to puzzle and
mystify the uninitiated, English and French alike. The
intelligent reader, who sees it all in print, will not be so
easily taken in.

When Mimsey was well enough, she would come with
my cousins and me into the park, where we always had a
good time — lying in ambush for red Indians, lescuing
Madge Plunket from a caitiff knight, or else hunting snakes
and field-mice and lizards, and digging for lizards’ eggs,
which we would hatch at home — that happy refuge foi
all manner of beasts, as well as little boys and girls. For
there were squirrels, hedgehogs, and guinea-pigs , an owl,
a raven, a monkey, and white mice ; little biids that had
strayed from the maternal nest before they could fly (they
always died !), the dog M<§dor, and any other dog who
chose ; not to mention a gigantic rocking-horse made out

38

PETER IB BETS ON

of a real stuffed pony — the smallest pony that had ever
been !

Often our united high spirits were too boisterous for
Mimsey. Dreadful headaches would come on, and she
would sit in a corner, nursing a hedgehog with one arm
and holding her thumb in her mouth with the other.
Only when we were alone together was she happy ; and
then, moult tristement !

On summer evenings whole parties of us, grown-up
and small, would walk through the park and the Bois
de Boulogne to the “ Mare d’Auteuil ” ; as we got near
enough for Medor to scent the water, he would bark and
grin and gyrate, and go mad with excitement, for he had
the gift of diving after stones, and liked to show it off.

There we would catch huge olive -coloured water-
beetles, yellow underneath ; red -bellied newts ; green
frogs, with beautiful spots and a splendid parabolic leap ;
gold and silver fish, pied with purply brown. I mention
them in the order of their attractiveness. The fish were
too tame and easily caught, and their beauty of too
civilised an order ; the rare, flat, vicious dytiscus “ took
the cake.”

Sometimes, even, we would walk through Boulogne to
St. Cloud, to see the new railway and the trains — an in¬
exhaustible subject of wonder and delight — and eat ices
at the “ Tete Noire” (a hotel which had been the scene of
a terrible murder that led to a cause celebre) ; and we
would come back through the scented night, while the
glowworms were shining in the grass, and the distant
frogs were croaking in the Mare d’Auteuil. Now and
then a startled roebuck would gallop in short bounds
across the path from thicket to thicket, and Medor would

PETER IB BETS ON

39

go mad again, and wake the echoes of the new Paris for¬
tifications, which were still in course of construction.

He had not the gift of catching roebucks !

If my father were of the party, he would yodel Tyro¬
lese melodies, and sing lovely songs of Boieldieu, Herold,
and Gretry ; or “ Drink to me only with thine eyes,” or
else the “ Bay of Dublin,” for Madame Seraskier, who had
the nostalgia of her beloved country whenever her be¬
loved husband was away.

Or else we would break out into a jolly chorus and
march to the tune — -

“ Marie, trempe ton pain,

Marie, trempe ton pain,

Marie, trempe ton pain dans la soupe ;

Marie, trempe ton pain,

Marie, trempe ton pain,

Marie, trempe ton pain dans le vin ! ”

Or else —

“ La — soupe aux choux — se fait dans la marmite ;

Dans — la marmite — se fait la soupe aux choux,’

which would give us all the nostalgia of supper !

Or else, again, if it were too hot to sing, or we were too
tired, M. le Major, forsaking the realms of fairyland, and
uncovering his high bald head as he walked, would gravely
and reverently tell us of his great master, of Brienne, of
Marengo, and Austerlitz; of the farewells at Fontainebleau,
and the Hundred Days— never of St. Helena ; he would
not trust himself to speak to us of that ! And gradually
working his way to Waterloo, he would put his hat on, and
demonstrate to us, by A+B, how, virtually, the English
had lost the day, and why and wherefore. And on all

40

PETER IB BET SON

the little party a solemn, awestruck stillness would fall as
we listened, and on some of us the sweet nostalgia of
bed !

Oh, the good old time !

The night was consecrated for me by the gleam and
scent and rustle of Madame Seraskier’s gown, as I walked
by her side in the deepening dusk — a gleam of yellow or
pale blue, or white — a scent of sandalwood — a rustle that
told of a light, vigorous tread on firm, narrow, high-arched
feet, that were not easily tired ; of an anxious, motherly
wish to get back to Mimsey, who was not strong enough
for these longer expeditions.

On the shorter ones I used sometimes to carry Mimsey
on my back most of the way home (to please her mother)
— a frail burden, with her poor, long, thin arms round my
neck, and her pale, cold cheek against my ear — she
weighed nothing ! And when I was tired M. le Major
would relieve me, but not for long. She always wanted
to be carried by Gogo (for so I was called, for no reason
whatever, unless it was that my name wTas Peter).

She would start at the pale birches that shone out
against the gloom, and shiver if a bough scraped her, and
tell me all about the Erl-king — “ mais comme ils sont la
tous les deux ” (meaning the Prince and the Fairy) “ il n’y
a absolument rien a craindre.”

And Mimsey was si bonne camarade , in spite of her
solemnity and poor health and many pains, so grateful for
small kindnesses, so appreciative of small talents, so in¬
dulgent to small vanities (of which she seemed to have no
more share than her mother), and so deeply humorous in
spite of her eternal gravity — for she was a real tomboy at
heart — that I soon carried her, not only to please her

42

PETER IB BETS ON

mother, but to please herself, and would have done any¬
thing for her.

As for M. le Major, he gradually discovered that
Mimsey was half a martyr and half a saint, and possessed
all the virtues under the sun.

“ Ah, vous ne la comprenez pas, cette enfant ; vous
verrez un jour quand ga ira mieux ! vous verrez ! elle
est comme sa mere . . . elle a toutes les intelligences de
la tete et du coeur ! ” and he would wish it had pleased
Heaven that he should be her grandfather — on the
maternal side.

L'art d'etre grandpere ! This weather - beaten, war-
battered old soldier had learned it, without ever having
had either a son or a daughter of his own. He was a
born grandfather !

Moreover, Mimsey and I had many tastes and
passions in common — music, for instance, as well as
Bewick’s woodcuts and Byron’s poetry, and roast chest¬
nuts and domestic pets; and above all, the Mare d’Auteuil,
which she preferred in the autumn, when the brown and
yellow leaves were eddying and scampering and chasing-
each other round its margin, or drifting on its troubled
surface, and the cold wet wind piped through the dishe¬
velled boughs of the forest, under the leaden sky.

She said it was good to be there then, and think of
home and the fireside ; and better still, when home was
reached at last, to think of the desolate pond we had left ;
and good, indeed, it was to trudge home by wood and
park and avenue at dusk, when the bats were about, with
Alfred and Charlie and Mimsey and Madge and Medor ;
swishing our way through the lush, dead leaves, scattering
the beautiful, ripe horse-chestnut out of its split creamy

PETER IB BETS ON

43

case, or picking up acorns and beechnuts here and there
as we went.

And, once home, it was good, very good, to think
how dark and lonesome and shivery it must be out there
by the mare , as we squatted and chatted and roasted
chestnuts by the wood fire in the schoolroom before the
candles were lit — entre chien et louft, as was called the
French gloaming — while Therese was laying the tea-
things, and telling us the news, and cutting bread and
butter ; and my mother played the harp in the drawing¬
room above ; till the last red streak died out of the wet
west behind the swaying tree-tops, and the curtains were
drawn, and there was light, and the appetites were let
loose.

I love to sit here, in my solitude and captivity, and
recall every incident of that sweet epoch — to ache with
the pangs of happy remembrance ; than which, for the
likes of me, great poets tell us there is no greater grief.
This sorrow’s crown of sorrow is my joy and my con¬
solation, and ever has been ; and I would not exchange
it for youth, health, wealth, honour, and freedom ; only
for thrice -happy childhood itself once more, over and
over again, would I give up its thrice-happy recollections.

That it should not be all beer and skittles with us,
and therefore apt to pall, my cousins and I had to work
pretty hard. In the first place, my dear mother did all
she could to make me an infant prodigy of learning. She
tried to teach me Italian, which she spoke as fluently as
English or French (for she had lived much in Italy), and
I had to translate the “ Gierusalemme Liberata ” into
both those latter languages — a task which has remained

44

PETER IB BETS ON

unfinished — and to render the “ Allegro ” and the
“ Penseroso ” into Miltonian French prose, and “ Le Cid ”
into Corneillian English. Then there were Pinnock’s
histories of Greece and Rome to master, and, of course,
the Bible ; and, every Sunday, the Collect, the Gospel,
and the Epistle to get by heart. No, it was not all beer
and skittles.

It was her pleasure to teach, but, alas ! not mine to
learn ; and we cost each other many a sigh, but loved
each other all the more, perhaps.

Then we went in the mornings, my cousins and I,
to M. Saindou’s, opposite, that we might learn French
grammar and French-Latin and French-Greek. But on
three afternoons out of the weekly six Mr. Slade, a
Cambridge sizar stranded in Paris, came to anglicise (and
neutralise) the Latin and Greek we had learned in the
morning, and to show us what sorry stuff the French had
made of them and of their quantities.

Perhaps the Greek and Latin quantities are a luxury
of English growth — a mere social test — a little pitfall
of our own invention, like the letter h , for the tripping
up of unwary pretenders ; or else, French education
being so deplorably cheap in those days, the school¬
masters there could not afford to take such fanciful
superfluities into consideration ; it was not to be done
at the price.

In PTance, be it remembered, the King and his green¬
grocer sent their sons to the same school (which did not
happen to be M. Saindou’s, by the way, where it was
nearly all greengrocer and no King) ; and the fee for bed,
board, and tuition, in all public schools alike, was some¬
thing like thirty pounds a year.

PETER IB BETS ON

45

The Latin, in consequence, was without the distinc¬
tion that comes of exclusiveness, and quite lacked that
aristocratic flavour, so grateful and comforting to scholar
and ignoramus alike, which the costly British public-school
system (and the British accent) alone can impart to a
dead language. When French is dead we shall lend it a
grace it never had before ; some of us even manage to do
so already.

That is (no doubt) why the best French writers so
seldom point their morals and adorn their tales, as ours
do, with the usual pretty, familiar, and appropriate lines
out of Horace or Virgil ; and why Latin is so little quoted
in French talk, except here and there by a weary shop¬
walker, who sighs —

“Varium et mutabile semper femina ! ” as he rolls
up the unsold silk ; or exclaims, “ O rus ! quando te
: aspiciam ! ” as he takes his railway ticket for Asnieres on
the first fine Sunday morning in spring.

But this is a digression, and we have wandered far
; away from Mr. Slade.

Good old Slade !

We used to sit on the stone posts outside the avenue
{ gate and watch for his appearance at a certain distant
( corner of the winding street.

With his green tail coat, his stiff shirt collar, his
t thick flat thumbs stuck in the armholes of his nankeen
i waistcoat, his long flat feet turned inward, his reddish
1 mutton-chop whiskers, his hat on the back of his head,
; and his clean, fresh, blooming, virtuous, English face

- the sight of him was not sympathetic when he appeared

£ at last.

Occasionally, in the course of his tuition, illness or

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PETER IB PETS ON

domestic affairs would, to his great regret, detain him
from our midst, and the beatitude we would experience
when the conviction gradually dawned upon us that we
were watching for him in vain was too deep for either

GOOD OLD SLADE.

words or deeds or outward demonstration of any sort. It
was enough to sit on our stone posts and let it steal over
us by degrees.

These beatitudes were few and far between. It would
be infelicitous, perhaps, to compare the occasional absences

PETER IB BETS ON

47

of a highly respectable English tutor to an angels visits,
but so we felt them.

And then he would make up for it next afternoon,
that conscientious Englishman ; which was fair enough
to our parents, but not to us. And then what extra
severity, as interest for the beggarly loan of half an
afternoon ! What rappings on ink - stained knuckles
with a beastly, hard, round, polished, heavy - wooded,
business-like English ruler !

It was our way in those days to think that every¬
thing English was beastly — an expression our parents
thought we were much too fond of using.

But perhaps we were not without some excuse for
this unpardonable sentiment. For there was another
English family in Passy — the Prendergasts, an older
family than ours — that is, the parents (and uncles and
aunts) were middle-aged, the grandmother dead, and the
children grown up. We had not the honour of their
acquaintance. But whether that was their misfortune
and our fault (or vice versa) I cannot tell. Let us hope
the former.

They were of an opposite type to ours, and, though
I say it, their type was a singularly unattractive one ;
perhaps it may have been the original of those caricatures
of our compatriots by which French comic artists have
sought to avenge Waterloo. It was stiff, haughty, con¬
temptuous. It had prominent front teeth, a high nose,
a long upper lip, a receding jaw ; it had dull, cold, stupid,
selfish green eyes, like a pike’s, that swerved neither to
right nor left, but looked steadily over people’s heads as
it stalked along in its pride of impeccable British self-
righteousness.

43

PETER I BEETS ON

At the sudden sight of it (especially on Sundays) all
the cardinal virtues became hateful on the spot, and
respectability a thing to run away from. Even that
smooth, close -shaven cleanliness was so Puritanically
aggressive as to make one abhor the very idea of soap.

OMINOUS BIRDS OF YORE.

Its accent, when it spoke French (in shops), instead
of being musical and sweet and sympathetic, like Madame
Seraskier’s, was barbarous and grotesque, with dreadful
“ ongs,” and “ angs,” and “ ows,” and “ ays ” ; and its
manner overbearing, suspicious, and disdainful ; and then

PETER IB BETS ON

49

we could hear its loud, insolent English asides ; and though
it was tall and straight and not outwardly deformed, it
looked such a kill-joy skeleton at a feast, such a portent¬
ous carnival mask of solemn emptiness, such a dreary,
doleful, unfunny figure of fun, that one felt Waterloo
might some day be forgiven, even in Passy, but the
Prendergasts, never !

I have lived so long away from the world that, for
all I know, this ancient British type, this “ grim, ungainly,
ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,” may have
become extinct, like another, but less unprepossessing
bird— the dodo ; whereby our state is the more gracious.

But in those days, and generalising somewhat hastily
as young people are apt to do, we grew to think that
England must be full of Prendergasts, and did not want
to go there.

To this universal English beastliness of things we
made a few exceptions, it is true, but the list was not
long : tea, mustard, pickles, gingerbread-nuts, and, of all
things in the world, the English loaf of household bread
that came to us once a week as a great treat and recom¬
pense for our virtues, and harmonised so well with Passy
butter. It was too delicious ! But there was always a
difficulty, a dilemma — whether to eat it with butter alone,
or with “cassonade” (French brown sugar) added.

Mimsey knew her own mind, and loved it with French
brown sugar, and if she were not there I would save for
her half of my slices, and carefully cassonade them for
her myself.

On the other hand, we thought everything French the
reverse of beastly — except all the French boys we knew,
and at M. Saindou’s there were about two hundred ; then

E

5°

PETER I BEET SON

there were all the boys in Passy (whose name was legion,
and who did not go to M. Saindou’s), and we knew all
the boys in Passy. So that we were not utterly bereft
of material for good, stodgy, crusty, patriotic English
prejudice.

Nor did the French boys fail to think us beastly in
return, and sometimes to express the thought ; especially
the little vulgar boys, whose playground was the street —
the voyous de Passy. They hated our white silk chimney¬
pot hats, and large collars, and Eton jackets, and called
us “ sacred godems,” as their ancestors used to call ours
in the days of Joan of Arc. Sometimes they would throw
stones, and then there were collisions, and bleedings of
impertinent little P'rench noses, and runnings away of
pusillanimous little French legs, and dreadful wails of
“ O la, la ! O la, la — maman ! ” when they were overtaken
by En glish ones.

Not but what our noses were made to bleed now and
then, unvictoriously, by a certain blacksmith — always the
same young blacksmith- — Boitard !

It is always a young blacksmith who does these
things — or a young butcher.

Of course, for the honour of Great Britain, one of us
finally licked him to such a tune that he has never been
able to hold up his head since. It was about a cat. It
came off at dusk one Christmas eve, on the “ Isle of
Swans,” between Passy and Grenelle (too late to save the
cat).

I was the hero of this battle. “ It’s now or never,” I
thought, and saw scarlet, and went for my foe like a
maniac. The ring was kept by Alfred and Charlie,
helped, oddly enough, by a couple of male Prendergasts,

PETER IB BETS ON

Si

who so far forgot themselves as to take an interest in the
proceedings. Madge and Mimsey looked on terrified and
charmed.

^ \ \ '/ y ■ l) ' It came off at dusk, one Christmas
V/'lJf'f. Eve, on the “ Isle of Swans.”

SETTLING AN OLD SCORE.

It did not last long, and was worthy of being de¬
scribed by Homer, or even in Bell’s Life. That is one of

52

PETER IB BETS ON

the reasons why I will not describe it. The two Prender-
gasts seemed to enjoy it very much while it lasted, and
when it was over they remembered themselves again, and
said nothing, and stalked away.

As we grew older and wiser we had permission to
extend our explorations to Meudon, Versailles, St. Ger¬
main, and other delightful places ; to ride thither on
hired horses, after having duly learned to ride at the
famous “ School of Equitation,” in the Rue Duphot.

Also, we swam in those delightful summer baths in
the Seine, that are so majestically called “ Schools of
Natation,” and became past masters in “ la coupe ” (a
stroke no other Englishman but ourselves has ever been
quite able to manage) and in all the different delicate
“nuances” of header-taking — “la coulante,” “la hussarde,”
“ la tete-beche,” “ la tout ce que vous voudrez

Also, we made ourselves at home in Paris, especially
old Paris.

For instance, there was the island of St. Louis, with
its stately old mansions entve couv et javelin, behind grim
stone portals and high walls, where great magistrates
and lawyers dwelt in dignified seclusion — the nobles of
the robe ; but where once had dwelt, in days gone by,
the greater nobles of the sword — crusaders, perhaps, and
knights templars, like Brian de Bois Guilbert.

And that other moie famous island, la Cite, where
Paris itself was born, where Notre Dame reared its twin
towers above the melancholy, gray, leprous walls and
dirty brown roofs of the Plotel-Dieu.

1 athetic little tumble-down old houses, all out of
drawing and perspective, nestled like old spiders’ webs

PETER IB BETS ON

S3

between the buttresses of the great cathedral ; and on two
sides of the little square in front (the Place du Parvis
Notre Dame) stood ancient stone dwellings, with high
slate roofs and elaborately-wrought iron balconies. They
seemed to have such romantic histories that I never tired
of gazing at them, and wondering what the histories could
be ; and now I think of it, one of these very dwellings
must have been the Hotel de Gondelaurier, where, according
to the most veracious historian that ever was, poor
Esmeralda once danced and played the tambourine to
divert the fair damosel Fleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier and
her noble friends, all of whom she so transcended in
beauty, purity, goodness, and breeding (although she was
but an untaught, wandering, gipsy girl out of the gutter) ;
and there, before them all and the gay archer, she was
betrayed to her final undoing by her goat, whom she had
so imprudently taught how to spell the beloved name of
“ Phebus.”

Close by was the Morgue, that gruesome building
which the great etcher Meryon has managed to invest
with some weird fascination akin to that it had for me
in those days — and has now, as I see it with the chaimed
eyes of Memory.

La Morgue ! what a fatal twang there is about the
very name !

After gazing one’s fill at the horrors within (as became
a healthy-minded English boy), it was but a step to the
equestrian statue of Henri Ouatre, on the 1 ont-Neuf (the
oldest bridge in Paris, by the way) ; there, astride his
long-tailed charger, he smiled, \le roy vert et galant , just
midway between either bank of the historic river, just
where it was most historic ; and turned his back on the

54

PETER IB BETS ON

Paris of the Bourgeois King with the pear-shaped face
and the mutton-chop whiskers.

And there one stood, spellbound in indecision, like
the ass of Buridan between two sacks of oats ; for on
either side, north or south of the Pont-Neuf, were to be
found enchanting slums, all more attractive the ones than
the others, winding up and down hill and roundabout and
in and out, like haunting illustrations by Gustave Dore to
Drolatick Tales by Balzac (not seen or read by me till
many years later, I beg to say).

Dark, narrow, silent, deserted streets that would turn
up afterward in many a nightmare — with the gutter in
the middle and towerlets and stone posts all along the
sides ; and high fantastic walls (where it was defendu
d'afficher), with bits of old battlement at the top, and
overhanging boughs of sycamore and lime, and behind
them gray old gardens that dated from the days of Louis
le Hutin and beyond ! And suggestive names printed in
old rusty iron letters at the street corners — “ Rue Vide-
gousset,” “Rue Coupe-gorge,” “Rue de la VieilleTruanderie,”
“ Impasse de la Tour de Nesle,” etc., that appealed to the
imagination like a chapter from Hugo or Dumas.

And the way to these was by long, tortuous, busy
thoroughfares, most irregularly flagged, and all alive with
strange, delightful people in blue blouses, brown woollen
tricots, wooden shoes, red and white cotton nightcaps, rags
and patches ; most graceful girls, with pretty, self-respect¬
ing feet, and flashing eyes, and no head-dress but their
own hair ; gay, fat hags, all smile ; thin hags, with faces
of appalling wickedness or misery ; precociously witty little
gutter imps of either sex ; and such cripples ! jovial hunch¬
backs, lusty blind beggars, merry creeping paralytics, scro-

PETER IB BETS ON

55

fulous wretches who joked and punned about their sores ;
light-hearted, genial, mendicant monsters without arms or
legs, who went ramping through the mud on their bellies
from one underground wine-shop to another ; and blue-
chinned priests, and barefooted brown monks, and demure
Sisters of Charity, and here and there a jolly chiffonnier
with his hook, and his knap-basket behind ; or a cuirassier,
or a gigantic carbineer, or gay little “ Hunter of Africa,”
or a couple of bold gendarmes riding abreast, with their
towering black bonnets a poil ; or a pair of pathetic little
red-legged soldiers, conscripts just fresh from the country,
with innocent light eyes and straw-coloured hair and
freckled brown faces, walking hand in hand, and staring
at all the pork-butchers’ shops — and sometimes at the
pork-butcher’s wife !

Then a proletarian wedding procession — headed by
the bride and bridegroom, an ungainly pair in their Sun¬
day best — all singing noisily together. Then a pauper
funeral, or a covered stretcher, followed by sympathetic
eyes on its way to the Hotel-Dieu ; or the last sacrament,
with bell and candle, bound for the bedside of some
humble agoniser in extremis — and we all uncovered as it
went by.

And then, for a running accompaniment of sound, the
clanging chimes, the itinerant street cries, the tinkle of the
marchand de coco, the drum, the cor de chasse, the organ of
Barbary, the ubiquitous pet parrot, the knife-grinder, the
bawling fried-potato monger, and, most amusing of all, the
poodle-clipper and his son, strophe and antistrophe, for
every minute the little boy would yell out in his shrill
treble that “ his father clipped poodles for thirty sous,
and was competent also to undertake the management of

56

PETER IB BETS ON

refractory tomcats,” upon which the father would growl
in his solemn bass, “ My son speaks the truth ” — L' enfant
dit vrai !

And rising above the general cacophony the din of the
eternally cracking whip, of the heavy cart-wheel jolting
over the uneven stones, the stamp and neigh of the spirited
little French cart-horse and the music of his many bells,
and the cursing and swearing and hue ! did ! of his driver !
It was all entrancing.

Thence home — to quiet, innocent, suburban Passy- —
by the quays, walking on the top of the stone parapet all
the way, so as to miss nothing (till a gendarme was in
sight), or else by the Boulevards, the Rue de Rivoli, the
Champs Elysees, the Avenue de St. Cloud, and the
Chaussee de la Muette. What a beautiful walk ! Is there
another like it anywhere as it was then, in the sweet early
forties of this worn-out old century, and before this poor
scribe had reached his teens ?

Ah ! it is something to have known that Paris, which
lay at one’s feet as one gazed from the heights of Passy,
with all its pinnacles and spires and gorgeously-gilded
domes, its Arch of Triumph, its Elysian Fields, its P'ield
of Mars, its Towers of Our Lady, its far-off Column of
July, its Invalids, and Vale of Grace, and Magdalen, and
Place of the Concord, where the obelisk reared its exotic
peak by the beautiful unforgettable fountains.

There flowed the many-bridged winding river, always
the same way, unlike our tidal Thames, and always full ;
just beyond it was spread that stately, exclusive suburb,
the despair of the newly rich and recently ennobled, where
almost every other house bore a name which read like a

PETER IB BETS ON

57

page of French history ; and farther still the merry, wicked
Latin quarter and the grave Sorbonne, the Pantheon, the
Garden of Plants ; on the hither side, in the middle dis¬
tance, the Louvre, where the kings of PYance had dwelt
for centuries; the Tuileries, where “the King of the
French ” dwelt then, and just for a little while yet.

Well I knew and loved it all ; and most of all I loved
it when the sun was setting at my back, and innumerable
distant windows reflected the blood-red western flame. It
seemed as though half Paris were on fire, with the cold
blue east for a background.

Dear Paris !

Yes, it is something to have roamed over it as a
small boy— a small English boy (that is, a small boy un¬
attended by his mother or his nurse), curious, inquisitive,
and indefatigable ; full of imagination ; all his senses keen
with the keenness that belongs to the morning of life : the
sight of a hawk, the hearing of a bat, almost the scent of
a hound.

Indeed, it required a nose both subtle and unprejudiced
to understand and appreciate and thoroughly enjoy that
Paris — not the Paris of M. le Baron Haussmann, lighted
by gas and electricity, and flushed and drained by modern
science ; but the “ good old Paris ” of Balzac and Eugene
Sue and Les Mysteres — the Paris of dim oil lanterns sus¬
pended from iron gibbets (where once aristocrats had been
hung) ; of water-carriers who sold water from their hand¬
carts, and delivered it at your door (au cinquieme) for a
penny a pail — to drink of, and wash in, and cook with,
and all.

There were whole streets — and these by no means the
least fascinating and romantic — where the unwritten

PETER IB BETS ON

58

domestic records of every house were afloat in the air
outside it — -records not all savoury or sweet, but always
full of interest and charm !

One knew at a sniff as one passed the porte cochere
what kind of people lived behind and above ; what they
ate and what they drank, and what their trade was ;
whether they did their washing at home, and burned tallow
or wax, and mixed chicory with their coffee, and were over-
fond of Gruyere cheese — the biggest, cheapest, plainest,
and most formidable cheese in the world ; whether they
fried with oil or butter, and liked their omelets overdone
and garlic in their salad, and sipped black-currant brandy
or anisette as a liqueur ; and were overrun with mice, and
used cats or mouse-traps to get rid of them, or neither ;
and bought violets, or pinks, or gillyflowers in season, and
kept them too long ; and fasted on Friday with red or
white beans, or lentils, or had a dispensation from the Pope
— or, haply, even dispensed with the Pope’s dispensation.

For of such a tell-tale kind were the overtones in that
complex, odorous clang.

I will not define its fundamental note — ever there, ever
the same ; big with a warning of quick-coming woe to
many households ; whose unheeded waves, slow but sure,
and ominous as those that rolled on great occasions from
le Bourdon de Notre Dame (the Big Ben of Paris), drove
all over the gay city and beyond, night and day — pene¬
trating every corner, overflowing the most secret recesses,
drowning the very incense by the altar steps.

“ Le pauvre en sa cabane oil le chaume le couvre
Est sujet k ses lois ;

Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre
N’en defend point nos rois.”

PETER IB BETS ON

59

And here, as I write, the faint, scarcely-perceptible,
ghost-like suspicion of a scent — a mere nostalgic fancy,
compound, generic, synthetic and all-embracing — an ab¬
stract olfactory symbol of the “Tout Paris” of fifty years
ago, comes back to me out of the past ; and fain would I
inhale it in all its pristine fulness and vigour. For scents,
like musical sounds, are rare sublimaters of the essence of
memory (this is a prodigious fine phrase — I hope it means
something), and scents need not be seductive in themselves
to recall the seductions of scenes and days gone by.

Alas ! scents cannot be revived at will, like an

“ Air doux et tendre
Jadis aime !”

Oh that I could hum or whistle an old French smell !
I could evoke all Paris, sweet prse-imperial Paris, in a
single whiff!

In such fashion did we three small boys, like the three
musketeers (the fame of whose exploits was then filling
all France), gather and pile up sweet memories, to chew
the cud thereof in after-years, when far away and apart.

Of all that bande joyeuse — old and young and middle-
aged, from M. le Major to Mimsey Seraskier — all are now
dead but I — -all except dear Madge, who was so pretty
and light-hearted ; and I have never seen her since.

Thus have I tried, with as much haste as I could
command (being one of the plodding sort), to sketch that
happy time, which came to an end suddenly and most
tragically when I was twelve years old.

My dear and jovial happy-go-lucky father was killed

6o

PETER IB BETS ON

in a minute by the explosion of a safety-lamp of his own
invention, which was to have superseded Sir Humphry
Davy’s, and made our fortune ! What a brutal irony of
fate !

So sanguine was he of success, so confident that his
ship had come home at last, that he had been in treaty
for a nice little old manor in Anjou (with a nice little
old castle to match), called la Mariere, which had belonged
to his ancestors, and from which we took our name (for
we were Pasquier de la Mariere, of quite a good old
family) ; and there we were to live on our own land, as
gentilshommes campagnards, and be French for evermore,
under a paternal, pear-faced bourgeois king as a temporary
pis-aller until Henri Cinq, Comte de Chambord, should
come to his own again, and make us counts and barons
and peers of P'rance — Heaven knows what for !

My mother, who was beside herself with grief, went
over to London, where this miserable accident had
occurred, and had barely arrived there when she was
delivered of a still-born child, and died almost im¬
mediately ; and I became an orphan in less than a week,
and a penniless one. For it turned out that my father
had by this time spent every penny of his own and my
mother’s capital, and had, moreover, died deeply in debt.
I was too young and too grief-stricken to feel anything
but the terrible bereavement, but it soon became patent
to me that an immense alteration was to be made in my
mode of life.

A relative of my mother’s, Colonel Ibbetson (who
was well off), came to Passy to do his best for me, and
pay what debts had been incurred in the neighbourhood,
and settle my miserable affairs.

PETER IB BETS ON

61

After a while it was decided by him and the rest of
the family that I should go back with him to London,
there to be disposed of for the best, according to his
lights.

And on a beautiful June morning, redolent of lilac
and syringa, and gay with dragonflies and butterflies and
humble-bees, my happy childhood ended as it had begun.
My farewells were heartrending (to me), but showed that
I could inspire affection as well as feel it, and that was
some compensation for my woe.

“Adieu, cher Monsieur Gogo. Bonne chance, et le
Bon Dieu vous benisse,” said le Pere et la Mere Francois.
Tears trickled down the Major’s hooked nose on to his
mustache, now nearly white.

Madame Seraskier strained me to her kind heart, and
blessed and kissed me again and again, and rained her
warm tears on my face ; and hers was the last figure I
saw as our fly turned into the Rue de la Tour on our
way to London, Colonel Ibbetson exclaiming —

“ Gad ! who’s the lovely young giantess that seems
so fond of you, you little rascal, hey ? By George ! you
young Don Giovanni, I’d have given something to be in
your place ! And who’s that nice old man with the long
green coat and the red ribbon ? A vieille moustache , I
suppose ; looks almost like a gentleman. Precious few
Frenchmen can do that ! ”

Such was Colonel Ibbetson.

And then and there, even as he spoke, a little drop
of sullen, chill dislike to my guardian and benefactor,
distilled from his voice, his aspect, the expression of his
face, and his way of saying things, suddenly trickled into
my consciousness — never to be wiped away !

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PETER I BEETS ON

As for poor Mimsey, her grief was so overwhelming
that she could not come out and wish me good-bye like
the others ; and it led, as I afterwards heard, to a long
illness, the worst she ever had ; and when she recovered
it was to find that her beautiful mother was no more.

Madame Seraskier died of the cholera, and so did le
Fere et la Mere Francois, and Madame Pele, and one of
the Napoleonic prisoners (not M. le Major), and several
other people we had known, including a servant of our
own, 1 herese, the devoted Therese, to whom we were all
devoted in return. That malodorous tocsin, which I have
compared to the big bell of Notre Dame, had warned,
and warned, and warned in vain.

The maison de sante was broken up. M. le Major
and his friends went and roosted on parole elsewhere,
until a good time arrived for them, when their lost leader
came back and remained — first as President of the
French Republic, then as Emperor of the French them¬
selves. No more parole was needed after that.

My grandmother and Aunt Plunket and her children
fled in terror to Tours, and Mimsey went to Russia with
her father.

Thus miserably ended that too happy septennate, and
so no more at present of

“ Le joli lieu de ma naissance !

FAREWELL TO PASSY.

^ccont)

E next decade of my outer life
is so uninteresting, even to my¬
self, that I will hurry through
it as fast as I can. It will
prove dull reading, I fear.

My Uncle Ibbetson (as I
now called him) took to me,
and arranged to educate and
start me in life, and make “ a
gentleman” of me — an “English
gentleman.” But I had to
change my name and adopt his ; for some reason I did
not know, he seemed to hate my father’s very name.
Perhaps it was because he had injured my father
through life in many ways, and my father had always
forgiven him ; a very good reason ! Perhaps it was
because he had proposed to my mother three times when
she was a girl, and had been thrice refused! (After the
third time, he went to India for seven years, and just
before his departure my father and mother were married,
and a year after that I was born.)

.SR H

PETER IB BETS ON

65

So Pierre Pasquier de la Mariere, alias Monsieur Gogo,
became Master Peter Ibbetson, and went to Bluefriars,
the gray-coat school, where he spent six years — an im¬
portant slice out of a man’s life, especially at that age.

I hated the garb ; I hated the surroundings — the big
hospital at the back, and that reek of cruelty, drunken¬
ness, and filth, the cattle -market — -where every other
building was either a slaughter-house, a gin-palace, or a
pawnbroker’s shop ; more than all I hated the gloomy
jail opposite, where they sometimes hanged a man in
public on a Monday morning. This dismal prison
haunted my dreams when I wanted to dream of Passy,
of my dear dead father and mother and Madame
Seraskier.

For the first term or two they were ever in my
thoughts, and I was always trying to draw their profiles
on desks and slates and copybooks, till at last all
resemblance seemed to fade out of them ; and then I
drew M. le Major till his side face became quite de¬
moralised and impossible, and ceased to be like anything
in life. Then I fell back on others : le Pere Francois,
with his eternal bonnet de coton and sabots stuffed with
straw ; the dog Medor, the rocking-horse, and all the
rest of the menagerie; the diligence that brought' me
away from Paris ; the heavily jack -booted couriers in
shiny hats and pigtails, and white breeches, and short¬
tailed blue coats covered with silver buttons, who used to
ride through Passy, on their way to and fro between the
Tuileries and St. Cloud, on little, neighing gray stallions,
with bells round their necks and tucked -up tails, and
beautiful heads like the horses’ heads in the Elgin
Marbles.

F

66

PETER IB BETS ON

In my sketches they always looked and walked and
trotted the same way : to the left, or westward as it would
be on the map. M. le Major, Madame Seraskier, Medor,
diligences and couriers, were all bound westward by
common consent — all going to London, I suppose, to
look after me, who was so dotingly fond of them.

Some of the boys used to admire these sketches and
preserve them — some of the bigger boys would value my
idealised (!) profiles of Madame Seraskier, with eyelashes
quite an inch in length, and an eye three times the size of
her mouth ; and thus I made myself an artistic reputation
for a while. But it did not last long, for my vein was
limited ; and soon another boy came to school, who sur¬
passed me in variety and interest of subject, and could
draw profiles looking either way with equal ease ; he is
now a famous Academician, and seems to have preserved
much of his old facility.1

Thus, on the whole, my school career was neither
happy nor unhappy, nor did I distinguish myself in any
way, nor (though I think I was rather liked than other¬
wise) make any great or lasting friendships ; on the other
hand, I did not in any way disgrace myself, nor make a
single enemy that I knew of. Except that I grew out of
the common tall and very strong, a more commonplace

1 Note. — I have here omitted several pages, containing a description in de¬
tail of my cousin’s life “ at Bluefriars ” ; and also the portraits (not always
flattering) which he has written of masters and boys, many of whom are still
alive, and some of whom have risen to distinction ; but these sketches would be
without special interest unless the names were given as well, and that would be
unadvisable for many reasons. Moreover, there is not much in what I have
left out that has any bearing on his subsequent life, or the development of his
character. Madge Pi.unket.

PETER IP BETS ON

6 7

boy than I must have seemed (after my artistic vein had
run itself dry) never went to a public school. So much
for my outer life at Bluefriars.

But I had an inner world of my own, whose capital was
Passy, whose fauna and flora were not to be surpassed by
anything in Regent’s Park or the Zoological Gardens.

It was good to think of it by day, to dream of it by
night, although I had not yet learned how to dream !

There were soon other and less exclusive regions,
however, which I shared with other boys of that bygone
day. Regions of freedom and delight, where I heard the
ominous crack of Deerslayer’s rifle, and was friends with
Chingachgook and his noble son — the last, alas ! of the
Mohicans ; where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made
merry, and exchanged buffets with Lion-hearted Richard
under the greenwood tree ; where Quentin Durward,
happy squire of dames, rode midnightly by their side
through the gibbet-and-gipsy-haunted forests of Touraine.

. . . Ah ! I had my dream of chivalry !

Happy times and climes ! One must be a gray-
coated schoolboy, in the heart of foggy London, to know
that nostalgia.

Not, indeed, but what London had its merits. Sam
Weller lived there, and Charley Bates, and the irresistible
Artful Dodger — and Dick Swiveller, and his adorable
Marchioness, who divided my allegiance with Rebecca of
York and sweet Diana Vernon.

It was good to be an English boy in those days, and
care for such friends as these ! But it was good to be a
French boy also ; to have known Paris, to possess the true
French feel of things— and the language.

Indeed, bilingual boys — boys double-tongued from

68

PETER IB BETS ON

their very birth (especially in French and English) — enjoy
certain rare privileges. It is not a bad thing for a school¬
boy (since a schoolboy he must be) to hail from two
mother-countries if he can, and revel now and then in the
sweets of homesickness for that of his two mother-coun-

A DREAM OF CHIVALRY.

tries in which he does not happen to be ; and read Les
Trois Mousquetaires in the cloisters of Bluefriars, or Ivan-
hoe in the dull, dusty prison-yard that serves for a play¬
ground in so many a French lycde !

Without listening, he hears all round him the stodgy
language of every day, and the blatant shouts of his
schoolfellows, in the voices he knows so painfully well —

PETER IB BET SON

69

those shrill trebles, those cracked barytones and frog-like
early basses ! There they go, bleating and croaking and
yelling; Dick, Tom, and Harry, or Jules, Hector, and
Alphonse ! How vaguely tiresome and trivial and
commonplace they are — those too familiar sounds ; yet
what an additional charm they lend to that so utterly
different but equally familiar word-stream that comes
silently flowing into his consciousness through his rapt
eyes ! The luxurious sense of mental exclusiveness and
self-sequestration is made doubly complete by the contrast !

And for this strange enchantment to be well and
thoroughly felt, both his languages must be native ; not
acquired, however perfectly. Every single word must
have its roots deep down in a personal past so remote
for him as to be almost unremembered ; the very sound
and printed aspect of each must be rich in childish
memories of home ; in all the countless, nameless, price¬
less associations that make it sweet and fresh and strong,
and racy of the soil.

Oh ! Porthos, Athos, and D’Artagnan — how I loved
you, and your immortal squires, Planchet, Grimaud, Mous-
queton ! How well and wittily you spoke the language I
adored — better even than good Monsieur Lallemand, the
French master at Bluefriars, who could wield the most
irregular subjunctives as if they had been mere feathers—
trifles light as air.

Then came the Count of Monte-Cristo, who taught me
(only too well) his terrible lesson of hatred and revenge ;
and Les Mysteres de Paris , Le Juif Errant , and others.

But no words that I can think of in either mother-
tongue can express what I felt when first, through these
tear-dimmed eyes of mine, and deep into my harrowed soul,

70

PETER IB BETS ON

came silently flowing the never-to-be-forgotten history of
poor Esmeralda,1 my first love ! whose cruel fate filled
with pity, sorrow, and indignation the last term of my life
at school. It was the most important, the most solemn,
the most epoch-making event of my school life. I read it,
re-read it, and read it again. I have not been able to read
it since ; it is rather long ! but how well I remember it,
and how short it seemed then ! and oh ! how short those
well-spent hours !

That mystic word 'Avay/crj ! I wrote it on the fly-leaf
of all my books. I carved it on my desk. I intoned it
in the echoing cloisters ! I vowed I would make a pil¬
grimage to Notre Dame some day, that I might hunt for
it in every hole and corner there, and read it with my own
eyes, and feel it with my own forefinger.

And then that terrible prophetie song the old hag
sings in the dark slums — how it haunted me, too ! I
could not shake it out of my troubled consciousness for
months —

“ Grouille, greve, greve, grouille,

File, file, ma quenouille 1
File sa corde au bourreau
Qui si fide dans le preau.”

’A vdyKij ! 'AvdyKy ! 3 Avdy kyj !

Yes ; it was worth while having been a little French
boy just for a few years.

I especially found it so during the holidays, which I
regularly spent at Bluefriars ; for there was a French cir¬
culating library at Holborn, close by — a paradise. It was

1 Noire Dame de Paris , par Victor Hugo.

PETER IB BETS ON

7i

kept by a delightful old French lady who had seen better
days, and was very kind to me, and did not lend me all
the books I asked for !

Thus irresistibly beguiled by these light wizards of

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.

our degenerate age, I dreamed away most of my school
life, utterly deaf to the voices of the older enchanters
Homer, Horace, Virgil— whom I was sent to school on
purpose to make friends with ; a deafness I lived to de¬
plore, like other dunces, when it was too late.

72

PETER IB BETS ON

And I was not only given to dream by day — I
dreamed by night ; my sleep was full of dreams — terrible
nightmares, exquisite visions, strange scenes full of
inexplicable reminiscence ; all vague and incoherent, like
all men’s dreams that have hitherto been ; for I had not
yet learned how to dream.

A vast world, a dread and beautiful chaos, an ever-
changing kaleidoscope of life, too shadowy and dim to
leave any lasting impression on the busy, waking mind ;
with here and there more vivid images of terror or delight,
that one remembered for a few hours with a strange
wonder and questioning, as Coleridge remembered his
Abyssinian maid who played upon the dulcimer (a
charming and most original combination).

The whole cosmos is in a man’s brains — as much of
it, at least, as a man’s brains will hold ; perhaps it is
nowhere else. And when sleep relaxes the will, and there
are no earthly surroundings to distract attention — no
duty, pain, or pleasure to compel it — riderless Fancy
takes the bit in its teeth, and the whole cosmos goes mad
and has its wild will of us.

Ineffable false joys, unspeakable false terror and
distress, strange phantoms only seen as in a glass darkly,
chase each other without rhyme or reason, and play
hide-and-seek across the twilit field and through the
dark recesses of our clouded and imperfect conscious¬
ness.

And the false terrors and distress, however unspeak¬
able, are no worse than such real terrors and distress as
are only too often the waking lot of man, or even so bad ;
but the ineffable false joys transcend all possible human
felicity while they last, and a little while it is ! We

PETER IB BETS ON

73

wake, and wonder, and recall the slight foundation on
which such ultra-human bliss has seemed to rest. What
matters the foundation if but the bliss be there, and the
brain has nerves to feel it ?

Poor human nature, so richly endowed with nerves of
anguish, so splendidly organised for pain and sorrow, is
but slenderly equipped for joy.

What hells have we not invented for the after-life !
Indeed, what hells we have often made of this, both for
ourselves and others, and at really such a very small cost
of ingenuity, after all !

Perhaps the biggest and most benighted fools have
been the best hell-makers.

Whereas the best of our heavens is but a poor
perfunctory conception, for all that the highest and
cleverest amongst us have done their very utmost to
decorate and embellish it, and make life there seem
worth living. So impossible it is to imagine or invent
beyond the sphere of our experience.

Now, these dreams of mine (common to many) of the
false but ineffable joys, are they not a proof that there
exist in the human brain hidden capacities, dormant
potentialities of bliss, unsuspected hitherto, to be
developed some day, perhaps, and placed within the
reach of all, wakers and sleepers alike ?

A sense of ineffable joy, attainable at will, and equal
in intensity and duration to (let us say) an attack of
sciatica, would go far to equalise the sorrowful, one-sided
conditions under which we live.

But there is one thing which, as a schoolboy, I never
dreamed — namely, that I, and one other holding a torch,

74

PETER ID BETS ON

should one day, by common consent, find our happiness
in exploring these mysterious caverns of the brain ; and
should lay the foundations of order where only misrule
had been before ; and out of all those unreal, waste, and
transitory realms of illusion, evolve a real, stable, and
habitable world, which all who run may reach.

At last I left school for good, and paid a visit to my
Uncle Ibbetson in Hopshire, where he was building him¬
self a lordly new pleasure-house on his own land, as the
old one he had inherited a year or two ago was no longer
good enough for him.

It was an uninteresting coast on the German Ocean,
without a rock, or a cliff, or a pier, or a tree ; even
without cold gray stones for the sea to break on — nothing
but sand ! — a bourgeois kind of sea, charmless in its best
moods, and not very terrible in its wrath, except to a few
stray fishermen whom it employed, and did not seem to
reward very munificently.

Inland it was much the same. One always thought
of the country as gray, until one looked and found that it
was green ; and then, if one were old and wise, one
thought no more about it, and turned one’s gaze inward.
Moreover, it seemed to rain incessantly.

But it was the country and the sea, after Bluefriars
and the cloisters — after Newgate, St. Bartholomew, and
Smithfield.

And one could fish and bathe in the sea after all, and
ride in the country, and even follow the hounds, a little
later ; which would have been a joy beyond compare if
one had not been blessed with an uncle who thought one
rode like a French tailor, and told one so, and mimicked

PETER IB BETS ON

75

one in the presence of charming young ladies who rode in
perfection.

In fact, it was heaven itself by comparison, and
would have remained so longer but for Colonel Ibbet-
son’s efforts to make a gentleman of me — an English
gentleman.

What is a gentleman? It is a grand old name ; but
what does it mean ?

At one time, to say of a man that he is a gentleman
is to confer on him the highest title of distinction we can
think of ; even if we are speaking of a prince.

At another, to say of a man that he is not a gentleman
is almost to stigmatise him as a social outcast, unfit for
the company oi his kind — even if it is only one haber¬
dasher speaking of another.

Who is a gentleman, and yet who is not ?

The Prince of Darkness was one, and so was Mr.

John Halifax, if we are to believe those who knew them

best ; and so was one “ Pelham,” according to the late Sir
Edward Bulwer, Earl of Lytton, etc. ; and it certainly
seemed as if he ought to know.

And I was to be another, according to Roger
Ibbetson, Esquire, of Ibbetson Hall, late Colonel of

the - , and it certainly seemed as if he ought to know

too ! The word was as constantly on his lips (when
talking to me) as though, instead of having borne
her Majesty’s commission, he were a hairdressers

assistant who had just come into an independent

fortune.

This course of tuition began pleasantly enough, before
I left London, by his sending me to his tailors, who made
me several beautiful suits ; especially an evening suit,

76

PETER I BEETS ON

which has lasted me for life, alas ! and these, after the
uniform of the gray-coat school, were like an initiation to
the splendours of freedom and manhood.

Colonel Ibbetson — or Uncle Ibbetson, as I used to
call him — was my mother’s first cousin ; my grandmother,
Mrs. Biddulph, was the sister of his father, the late Arch¬
deacon Ibbetson, a very pious, learned, and exemplary
divine, of good family.

But his mother (the Archdeacon’s second wife) had
been the only child and heiress of an immensely rich
pawnbroker, by name Mendoza ; a Portuguese Jew, with
a dash of coloured blood in his veins besides, it was said ;
and indeed this remote African strain still showed itself
in Uncle Ibbetson’s thick lips, wide-open nostrils, and big
black eyes with yellow whites — and especially in his long,
splay, lark-heeled feet, which gave both himself and the
best bootmaker in London a great deal of trouble.

Otherwise, and in spite of his ugly face, he was not
without a certain soldier-like air of distinction, being very
tall and powerfully built. He wore stays, and an
excellent wig, for he was prematurely bald ; and he
carried his hat on one side, which (in my untutored eyes)
made him look very much like a “ swell” but not quite like
a gentleman.

To wear your hat jauntily cocked over one eye, and
yet “ look like a gentleman ” !

It can be done, I am told ; and has been, and is even
still ! It is not, perhaps, a very lofty achievement — but
such as it is, it requires a somewhat rare combination of
social and physical gifts in the wearer ; and the possession
of either Semitic or African blood does not seem to be
one of these.

PETER IB BETS ON

77

Colonel Ibbetson could do a little of everything —
sketch (especially a steamboat on a smooth sea, with

PORTRAIT CHARMANT.

beautiful thick smoke reflected in the water), play the
guitar, sing chansonnettes and canzonets, write society
verses, quote De Musset —

78

PETER 1 BEETS ON

“ Avez-vous vu dans Barcelone
Une Andalouse au sein bruni ?”

He would speak French whenever he could, even to
an English ostler, and then recollect himself suddenly, and
apologise for his thoughtlessness ; and even when he
spoke English, he would embroider it with little twopenny
French tags and idioms : “ Pour tout potage ” ; “ Nous
avons change tout cela”; “ Que diable allait-il faire dans
cette galere ? ” etc. ; or Italian, “ Chi lo sa ? ” “ Pazienza ! ”
“ Ahime ! ” or even Latin, “ Eheu fugaces,” and “ Vidi
tantum ! ” for he had been an Eton boy. It must have
been very cheap Latin, for I could always understand it
myself! He drew the line at German and Greek ;
fortunately, for so do I. He was a bachelor, and his
domestic arrangements had been irregular, and I will not
dwell upon them ; but his house, as far as it went, seemed
to promise better things.

His architect, Mr. Lintot, an extraordinary little
man, full of genius and quite self-made, became my friend
and taught me to smoke, and drink gin and water.

He did his work well ; but of an evening he used
to drink more than was good for him, and rave about
Shelley, his only poet. He would recite “ The Skylark ”
(his only poem) with uncertain /is. and a rather cockney
accent —

“ ’Ail to thee blithe sperrit !

Bird thou never wert,

That from ’eaven, or near it,

Po’rest thy full ’eart

In profuse strains of hunpremeditated hart.”

As the evening wore on his recitations became “ low
comic,” and quite admirable for accent and humour. He

PETER IB BETS ON

79

could imitate all the actors in London (none of whom
I had seen) so well as to transport me with delight and
wonder ; and all this with nobody but me for an audience,
as we sat smoking and drinking together in his room at
the “ Ibbetson Arms.”

I felt grateful to adoration.

I FELT GRATEFUL TO ADORATION.

Later still, he would become sentimental again ; and
dilate to me on the joys of his wedded life, on the ex¬
traordinary intellect and beauty of Mrs. Lintot. First he
would describe to me the beauties of her mind, and
compare her to “ L. E. L. and Felicia Hemans. Then
he would fall back on her physical perfections ; there was
nobody worthy to be compared to her in these but I
draw the veil.

8o

PETER IB BETS ON

He was very egotistical. Whatever he did, whatever
he liked, whatever belonged to him, was better than
anything else in the world ; and he was cleverer than any
one else, except Mrs. Lintot, to whom he yielded the palm ;
and then he would cheer up and become funny again.

In fact his self-satisfaction was quite extraordinary ;
and, what is more extraordinary still, it was not a bit
offensive— at least, to me ; perhaps because he was such a
tiny little man ; or because much of this vanity of his
seemed to have no very solid foundation, for it was not of
the gifts I most admired in him that he was vainest ; or
because it came out most when he was most tipsy, and
genial tipsiness redeems so much ; or else because he was
most vain about things I should never have been vain
about myself ; and the most unpardonable vanity in others
is that which is secretly our own, whether we are conscious
of it or not.

And then he was the first funny man I had ever met.
What a gift it is ! He was always funny when he tried to
be, whether one laughed with him or at him, and I loved
him for it. Nothing on earth is more pathetically pitiable
than the funny man when he still tries and succeeds no
longer.

The moment Lintot’s vein was exhausted, he had the
sense to leave off and begin to cry, which was still funny ;
and then I would help him upstairs to his room, and he
would jump out of his clothes and into his bed and be
asleep in a second, with the tears still trickling down his
little nose — -and even that was funny !

But next morning he was stern and alert and inde¬
fatigable, as though gin and poetry and conjugal love had
never been, and fun were a capital crime.

PETER I BEETS ON

Si

Uncle Ibbetson thought highly of him as an architect,
but not otherwise ; he simply made use of him.

“ He’s a terrible little snob, of course, and hasn’t got an
h in his head ” (as if that were a capital crime) ; “ but he’s
very clever — look at that campanile — and then he’s cheap,
my boy, cheap.”

There were several fine houses in fine parks not very
far from Ibbetson Hall ; but although Uncle Ibbetson
appeared in name and wealth and social position to be on
a par with their owners, he was not on terms of intimacy
with any of them, or even of acquaintance, as far as I
know, and spoke of them with contempt, as barbarians —
people with whom he had nothing in common. Perhaps
they, too, had found out this incompatibility, especially the
ladies ; for, schoolboy as I was, I was not long in discover¬
ing that his manner toward those of the other sex was not
always such as to please either them or their husbands or
fathers or brothers. The way he looked at them was
enough. Indeed, most of his lady friends and acquaint¬
ances through life had belonged to the corps de ballet , the
demi-monde , etc. — not, I should imagine, the best school of
manners in the world.

On the other hand, he was very friendly with some
families in the town ; the doctor’s, the rector’s, his own
agent’s (a broken-down brother officer and bosom friend,
who had ceased to love him since he received his pay) ;
and he used to take Mr. Lintot and me to parties there ;
and he was the life of those parties.

He sang little French songs, with no voice, but quite
a good French accent, and told little anecdotes with no
particular point, but in French and Italian (so that the
point was never missed) ; and we all laughed and admired

G

PETER I BEETS ON

without quite knowing why, except that he was the lord
of the manor.

On these festive occasions poor Lintot’s confidence and
power of amusing seemed to desert him altogether ; he sat
glum in a corner.

Though a radical and a sceptic, and a peace-at-any-
price man, he was much impressed by the social status of
the army and the church.

Of the doctor, a very clever and accomplished person,
and the best educated man for miles around, he thought
little ; but the rector, the colonel, the poor captain
even, now a mere land-steward, seemed to fill him with
respectful awe. And for his pains he was cruelly snubbed
by Mrs. Captain and Mrs. Rector and their plain daughters,
who little guessed what talents he concealed, and thought
him quite a common little man, hardly fit to turn over the
leaves of their music.

It soon became pretty evident that Ibbetson was very
much smitten with a Mrs. Deane, the widow of a brewer, a
very handsome woman indeed, in her own estimation and
mine, and everybody else’s, except Mr. Lintot’s, who said,
“ Pooh, you should see my wife ! ”

Her mother, Mrs. Glyn, excelled us all in her admira¬
tion of Colonel Ibbetson.

For instance, Mrs. Deane would play some common
little waltz of the cheap kind that is never either remem¬
bered or forgotten, and Mrs. Glyn would exclaim, “ Is not
that lovely ? ”

And Ibbetson would say : “ Charming ! charming !
Whose is it ? Rossini’s ? Mozart’s ? ”

“ Why, no, my dear colonel. Don’t you remember ?
It’s your own ! ”

PETER IB BETS ON

83

“ Ah, so it is ! I had quite forgotten.” And general
laughter and applause would burst forth at such a natural
mistake on the part of our great man.

Well, I could neither play nor sing, and found it
far easier by this time to speak English than French,
especially to English people who were ignorant of any
language but their own. Yet sometimes Colonel Ibbetson
would seem quite proud of me.

“ Deux metres, bien sonnes ! ” he would say, alluding
to my stature, “ et le profil d’Antinoiis ! ” which he would
pronounce without the two little dots on the u.

And afterward, if he had felt his evening a pleasant
one, if he had sung all he knew, if Mrs. Deane had been
more than usually loving and self-surrendering, and I had
distinguished myself by skilfully turning over the leaves
when her mother had played the piano, he would tell me,
as we walked home together, that I “ did credit to his
name, and that I would make an excellent figure in the
world as soon as I had decrasse myself ; that I must get
another dress suit from his tailor, just an eighth of an
inch longer in the tails ; that I should have a commission
in his old regiment (the Eleventeenth Royal Bounders), a
deuced crack cavalry regiment ; and see the world and
break a few hearts (it is not for nothing that our friends
have pretty wives and sisters) ; and finally marry some
beautiful young heiress of title, and make a home for him
when he was a poor solitary old fellow. Very little would
do for him : a crust of bread, a glass of wine and water,
and a clean napkin, a couple of rooms, and an old piano
and a few good books. For, of course, Ibbetson Hall
would be mine and every penny he possessed in the
world.”

ONE OF UNCLE IBBETSON’S WALTZES.

PETER I BEETS ON

85

All this in confidential French — lest the very clouds
should hear us — and with the familiar thee and thou of
blood-relationship, which I did not care to return.

It did not seem to bode very serious intentions toward
Mrs. Deane, and would scarcely have pleased her mother.

Or else, if something had crossed him, and Mrs.
Deane had flirted outrageously with somebody else, and
he had not been asked to sing (or somebody else had), he
would assure me in good round English that I was the
most infernal lout that ever disgraced a drawing-room, or
ate a man out of house and home, and that he was sick

and ashamed of me. “ Why can’t you sing, you d - d

French milksop ? That d - d roulade - monger of a

father of yours could sing fast enough, if he could do
nothing else, confound him ! Why can’t you talk French,
you infernal British booby ? Why can’t you hand round
the tea and muffins, confound you ! Why, twice Mrs.
Glyn dropped her pocket-handkerchief and had to pick it
up herself ! What, ‘ at the other end of the room,’ were
you ? Well, you should have skipped across the room,
and picked it up, and handed it to her with a pretty
speech, like a gentleman ! When I was your age I was
always on the lookout for ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs to
drop — or their fans ! I never missed one ! ”

Then he would take me out to shoot with him (for it
was quite essential that an English gentleman should be a
sportsman) — a terrible ordeal to both of us.

A snipe that I did not want to kill in the least would
sometimes rise and fly right and left like a flash of lightning,

and I would miss it — always ; and he would d - me

for a son of a confounded French Micawber, and miss the
next himself, and get into a rage and thrash his dog, a

86

PETER IB BETS ON

pointer that I was very fond of. Once he thrashed her
so cruelly that I saw scarlet, and nearly yielded to the
impulse of emptying both my barrels in his broad back.
If I had done so it would have passed for a mere mishap
after all, and saved many future complications.

One day he pointed out to me a small bird pecking
in a field — an extremely pretty bird — I think it was a
skylark — - and whispered to me in his most sarcastic
manner —

“ Look here, you Peter without any salt, do you think,
if you were to kneel down and rest your gun comfortably
on this gate without making a noise, and take a careful
aim, you could manage to shoot that bird sitting ? I’ve
heard of some Frenchmen who would be equal to
that ! ”

I said I would try, and, resting my gun as he told
me, I carefully aimed a couple of yards above the bird’s
head, and mentally ejaculating,

“ ’Ail to thee blithe sperrit ! ”

I fired both barrels (for fear of any after - mishap to
Ibbetson), and the bird naturally flew away.

After this he never took me out shooting with him
again ; and, indeed, I had discovered to my discomfiture
that I, the friend and admirer and would-be emulator of
Natty Bumppo the Deerslayer, I, the familiar of the last
of the Mohicans and his scalp-lifting father, could not bear
the sight of blood — least of all, of blood shed by myself,
and for my own amusement.

The only beast that ever fell to my gun during those
shootings with Uncle Ibbetson was a young rabbit, and

PETER I BEETS ON

8 7

that more by accident than design, although I did not tell
Uncle Ibbetson so.

As I picked it off the ground, and felt its poor little

“'AIL to thee blithe SPERRIT !

warm narrow chest, and the last beats of its heart under
its weak ribs, and saw the blood on its fur, I was smitten
with pity, shame, and remorse ; and settled with myself

88

PETER IB BETS ON

that I would find some other road to English gentleman-
hood than the slaying of innocent wild things whose happy
life seems so well worth living.

I must eat them, I suppose, but I would never shoot
them any more ; my hands, at least, should be clean of
blood henceforward.

Alas, the irony of fate !

The upshot of all this was that he confided to Mrs.
Deane the task of licking his cub of a nephew into shape.

She took me in hand with right goodwill, and began
by teaching me how to dance, that I might dance with
her at the coming hunt ball ; and I did so nearly all
night, to my infinite joy and triumph, and to the disgust
of Colonel Ibbetson, who could dance much better than
I — to the disgust, indeed, of many smart men in red
coats and black, for she was considered the belle of the
evening.

Of course I fell, or fancied I fell, in love with her.
To her mother’s extreme distress, she gave me every
encouragement, partly for fun, partly to annoy Colonel
Ibbetson, whom she had apparently grown to hate. And,
indeed, from the way he often spoke of her to me (this
trainer of English gentlemen), he well deserved that she
should hate him. He never had the slightest intention of
marrying her ; that is certain ; and yet he had made her
the talk of the place.

And here I may state that Ibbetson was one of those
singular men who go through life afflicted with the mania
that they are fatally irresistible to women.

He was never weary of pursuing them— not through
any special love of gallantry for its own sake, I believe,

PETER IB BETS ON

89

but from the mere wish to appear as a Don Giovanni in
the eyes of others. Nothing made him happier than to
be seen whispering mysteriously in corners with the
prettiest woman in the room. He did not seem to per-

THE DANCING LESSON.

ceive that for one woman silly or vain or vulgar enough
to be flattered by his idiotic persecution, a dozen would
loathe the very sight of him, and show it plainly enough.

This vanity had increased with years and assumed
a very dangerous form. He became indiscreet, and,
more 'disastrous still, he told lies ! The very dead-
the honoured and irreproachable dead were not even

go

PETER IB BET SON

safe in their graves. It was his revenge for unforgotten
slights.

He who kisses and tells, he who tells even though
he has not kissed — what can be said for him, what
should be done to him ?

Ibbetson one day expiated this miserable craze with
his life, and the man who took it — more by accident than
design, it is true— has not yet found it in his heart to feel
either compunction or regret.

So there was a great row between Ibbetson and

myself. He d - d and confounded and abused me

in every way, and my father before me, and finally struck
me ; and I had sufficient self-command not to strike him
back, but left him then and there with as much dignity as
I could muster.

Thus unsuccessfully ended my brief experience of
English country life — a little hunting and shooting and
fishing, a little dancing and flirting ; just enough of each
to show me I was unfit for all.

A bitter-sweet remembrance, full of humiliation, but
not altogether without charm. There was the beauty of
sea and open sky and changing country weather, and the
beauty of Mrs. Deane, who made a fool of me to revenge
herself on Colonel Ibbetson for trying to make a fool of
her ; whereby he became the laughing-stock of the neigh¬
bourhood for at least nine days.

And I revenged myself on both — heroically, as I
thought ; though where the heroism comes in, and
where the revenge, does not appear quite patent.

For I ran away to London, and enlisted in her
Majesty’s Household Cavalry, where 1 remained a twelve-

PETER IB BETS ON

9i

month, and was happy enough, and learned a great deal
more good than harm.

Then I was bought out and articled to Mr. Lintot,
architect and surveyor : a conclave of my relatives agreeing
to allow me ninety pounds a year for three years ; then
all hands were to be washed of me altogether.1

So I took a small lodging in Pentonville, to be near
Mr. Lintot, and worked hard at my new profession for

PENTONVILLE.

three years, during which nothing of importance occurred
in my outer life. After this Lintot employed me as a

1 Note. — I have thought it better to leave out, in its entirety, my cousin s
account of his short career as a private soldier. It consists principally of
personal descriptions that are not altogether unprejudiced ; he seems nev ei to
have quite liked those who were placed in authority above him, eithei at school
or in the army.

But one of my husband’s intimate friends, General , who was comet
in the Life Guards in my poor cousin’s time, writes me that he remembeis
him well, as far and away the tallest and handsomest lad in the whole regiment,
of immense physical strength, unimpeachable good conduct, and a thorough
gentleman from top to toe.” Madge Plcnket.

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PETER IB BETS ON

salaried clerk, and I do not think he had any reason to
complain of me, nor did he make any complaint. I was
worth my hire, I think, and something over ; which
I never got and never asked for.

Nor did I complain of him ; for with all his little
foibles of vanity, irascibility, and egotism, and a certain
close-fistedness, he was a good fellow and a very clever
one.

His paragon of a wife was by no means the beautiful
person he had made her out to be, nor did anybody but
he seem to think her so.

She was a little older than himself ; very large and
massive, with stern but not irregular features, and a very
high forehead ; she had a slight tendency to baldness, and
colourless hair that she wore in an austere curl on each
side of her face, and a menacing little topknot on her
occiput. She had been a Unitarian and a governess, was
fond of good long words, like Dr. Johnson, and very
censorious.

Her husband’s occasional derelictions in the matter
of grammar and accent must have been very trying to
her !

She knew her own mind about everything under the
sun, and expected that other people should know it too,
and be of the same mind as herself. And yet she was
not proud ; indeed, she was a very dragon of humility,
and had raised injured meekness to the rank of a militant
virtue. And well she knew how to be master and mistress
in her own house !

But with all this she was an excellent wife to Mr.
Lintot and a devoted mother to his children, who were
very plain and subdued (and adored their father) ; so that

PETER IB BET SON

93

Lintot, who thought her Venus and Diana and Minerva
in one, was the happiest man in all Pentonville.

And, on the whole, she was kind and considerate to
me, and I always did my best to please her.

Moreover (a gift for which I could never be too grate¬
ful), she presented me with an old square piano, which
had belonged to her mother, and had done duty in her
schoolroom, till Lintot gave her a new one (for she was a
highly cultivated musician of the severest classical type).
It became the principal ornament of my small sitting-
room, which it nearly filled, and on it I tried to learn my
notes, and would pick out with one finger the old beloved
melodies my father used to sing, and my mother play on
the harp.

To sing myself was, it seems, out of the question ;
my voice (which I trust was not too disagreeable when I
was content merely to speak) became as that of a bull¬
frog under a blanket whenever I strove to express myself
in song ; my larynx refused to produce the notes 1 held
so accurately in my mind, and the result was disaster.

On the other hand, in my mind I could sing most
beautifully. Once on a rainy day, inside an Islington
omnibus, I mentally sang “ Adelaida ” with the voice of
Mr. Sims Reeves — an unpardonable liberty to take ; and
although it is not for me to say so, I sang it even better
than he, for I made myself shed tears — so much so that
a kind old gentleman sitting opposite seemed to feel for
me very much.

I also had the faculty of remembering any tune I
once heard, and would whistle it correctly ever aftei e\ en
one of Uncle Ibbetson’s waltzes !

As an instance of this, worth recalling, one night I

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PETER IB BETS ON

found myself in Guildford Street, walking in the same
direction as another belated individual (only on the other
side of the road), who, just as the moon came out of a
cloud, was moved to whistle.

He whistled exquisitely, and, what was more, he
whistled quite the most beautiful tune I had ever heard.
I felt all its changes and modulations, its majors and
minors, just as if a whole band had been there to play the
accompaniment, so cunning and expressive a whistler
was he.

And so entranced was I that I made up my mind
to cross over and ask him what it was — “ Your melody
or your life 1 ” But he suddenly stopped at number 48,
and let himself in with his key before I could prefer my
humble request.

Well, I went whistling that tune all next day, and
for many days after, without ever finding out what it was,
till one evening, happening to be at the Lintots’, I asked
Mrs. Lintot (who happened to be at the piano) if she
knew it, and began to whistle it once more. To my
delight and surprise she straightway accompanied it all
through (a wonderful condescension in so severe a purist),
and I did not make a single wrong note.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lintot, “ it’s a pretty, catchy little
tune — of a kind to achieve immediate popularity.”

Now, I apologise humbly to the reader for this
digression ; but if he be musical he will forgive me, for
that tune was the “ Serenade ” of Schubert, and I had
never even heard Schubert’s name !

And having thus duly apologised, I will venture
to transgress and digress anew, and mention here a kind
of melodic malady, a singular obsession to which I am

PETER IB BETS ON

95

subject, and which I will call unconscious musical cere¬
bration.

I am never without some tune running in my head
— never for a moment ; not that I am always aware of
it ; existence would be insupportable if I were. What
part of my brain sings it, or rather in what part of my
brain it sings itself, I cannot imagine — probably in some
useless corner full of cobwebs and lumber that is fit for
nothing else.

But it never leaves off; now it is one tune, now
another ; now a song zvithout words, now with ; some¬
times it is near the surface, so to speak, and I am vaguely
conscious of it as I read or work, or talk or think ; some¬
times to make sure it is there I have to dive for it deep
into myself, and I never fail to find it after a while, and
bring it up to the top. It is the “ Carnival of Venice,”
let us say ; then I let it sink again, and it changes with¬
out my knowing ; so that when I take another dive the
“Carnival of Venice” has become “II Mio Tesoro,” or
the “ Marseillaise,” or “ Pretty Little Polly Perkins of
Paddington Green.” And Heaven knows what tunes,
unheard and unperceived, this internal barrel-organ has
been grinding meanwhile.

Sometimes it intrudes itself so persistently as to
become a nuisance, and the only way to get rid of it
is to whistle or sing myself. For instance, I may be
mentally reciting for my solace and delectation some
beloved lyric like “The Waterfowl,” or “Tears, Idle
Tears,” or “Break, Break, Break”; and all the while,
between the lines, this fiend of a subcerebral vocalist,
like a wandering minstrel in a distant square, insists
on singing, “ Cheer, Boys, Cheer,” or, “ Tommy, make

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PETER I BEETS ON

room for your uncle ” (tunes I cannot abide), with words,
accompaniment, and all, complete, and not quite so
refined an accent as I could wish ; so that I have to
leave off my recitation and whistle “J’ai du Bon Tabac ”
in quite a different key to exorcise it.

But this, at least, I will say for this never still small
voice of mine : its intonation is always perfect ; it keeps
ideal time ; and its quality, though rather thin and some¬
what nasal and quite peculiar, is not unsympathetic.
Sometimes, indeed (as in that Islington omnibus), I can
compel it to imitate, a s’y meprendre , the tones of some
singer I have recently heard, and thus make for myself
a ghostly music which is not to be despised.

Occasionally, too, and quite unbidden, it would warble
little impromptu inward melodies of my own composition,
which often seemed to me extremely pretty, old-fashioned,
and quaint ; but one is not a fair judge of one’s own
productions, especially during the heat of inspiration ;
and I had not the means of recording them, as I had
never learned the musical notes. What the world has lost !

Now whose this small voice was I did not find out
till many years later, for it was not mine !

In spite of such rare accomplishments and resources
within myself, I was not a happy or contented young
man ; nor had my discontent in it anything of the
divine.

I disliked my profession, for which I felt no par¬
ticular aptitude, and would fain have followed another
— poetry, science, literature, music, painting, sculpture ;
for all of which I most unblushingly thought myself
better fitted by the gift of nature.

PETER IB BETS ON

97

I disliked Pentonville, which, although clean, virtuous,
and respectable, left much to be desired on the score of
shape, colour, romantic tradition, and local charm ; and
I would sooner have lived anywhere else : in the Champs
Elysees, let us say — yes, indeed, even on the fifth branch
of the third tree on the left-hand side as you leave the
Arc de Triomphe, like one of those classical heroes in
Henri Murger’s Vie de Bohhne.

I disliked my brother apprentices, and did not get
on well with them, especially a certain very clever but
vicious and deformed youth called Judkins, who seemed
to have conceived an aversion for me from the first; he
is now an Associate of the Royal Academy. They
thought I gave myself airs because I did not share in
their dissipations ; such dissipations as I could have
afforded would have been cheap and nasty indeed.

Yet such pothouse dissipation seemed to satisfy them,
since they took not only' a pleasure in it, but a pride.

They even took a pride in a sick headache, and
liked it, if it were the result of a debauch on the previous
night ; and were as pompously mock -modest about a
black eye, got in a squabble at the Argyll Rooms, as if
it had been the Victoria Cross. To pass the night in a
police cell was such glory that it was worth while pre¬
tending they had done so when it was untrue.

They looked upon me as a muff, a milksop, and a
prig, and felt the greatest contempt for me ; and if they
did not openly show it, it was only because they were
not quite so fond of black eyes as they made out.

So I left them to their inexpensive joys, and betook
myself to pursuits of my own, among others to the culti¬
vation of my body, after methods I had learnt in the

H

98

PETER 1 BEET SON

Life Guards. I belonged to a gymnastic and fencing
and boxing club, of which I was a most assiduous fre¬
quenter ; a more persevering dumb-beller and Indian-
clubber never was, and I became in time an all-round
athlete, as wiry and lean as a greyhound, just under
fifteen stone, and four inches over six feet in height,
which was considered very tall thirty years ago ; especially
in Pentonville, where the distinction often brought me
more contumely than respect.

Altogether a most formidable person, but that I was
of a timid nature, afraid to hurt, and the peacefullest
creature in the world.

My old love for slums revived, and I found out and
haunted the worst in London. They were very good
slums, but they were not the slums of Paris — they manage
these things better in France.

Even Cow Cross (where the Metropolitan Railway
now runs between King’s Cross and Farringdon Street)
— Cow Cross, that whilom labyrinth of slaughter-houses,
gin-shops, and thieves’ dens, with the famous Fleet Ditch
running underneath it all the while, lacked the fascina¬
tion and mystery of mediaeval romance. There were no
memories of such charming people as Le Roi des Truands
and Gringoire and Esmeralda ; with a sigh one had to
fall back on visions of Fagin and Bill Sikes and Nancy.

Quelle degringolade !

And as to the actual denizens ! One gazed with a
dull, wondering pity at the poor, pale, rickety children ;
the slatternly, coarse women who never smiled (except
when drunk) ; the dull, morose, miserable men. How
they lacked the grace of French deformity, the ease and
lightness of French depravity, the sympathetic distinction

PETER IB BETS ON

99

of French grotesqueness. How unterrible they were,
who preferred the fist to the noiseless and insidious knife !
who fought with their hands instead of their feet, quite
loyally ; and reserved the kick of their hobnailed boots
for their recalcitrant wives !

And then there was no Morgue ; one missed one’s
Morgue badly.

And Smithfield ! It would split me truly to the
heart (as M. le Major used to say) to watch the poor
beasts that came on certain days to make a short station
in that hideous cattle - market, on their way to the
slaughter-house.

What bludgeons have I seen descend on beautiful,
bewildered, dazed, meek eyes, so thickly fringed against
the country sun ; on soft, moist, tender nostrils that
clouded the poisonous reek with a fragrance of the far-off
fields ! What torture of silly sheep and genially cynical
pigs !

The very dogs seemed demoralised, and brutal as
their masters.

And there one day I had an adventure, a dirty bout
at fisticuffs, most humiliating in the end for me, and
which showed that chivalry is often its own reward, like
virtue, even when the chivalrous are young and big and
stronsf, and have learned to box.

A brutal young drover wantonly kicked a sheep,
and, as I thought, broke her hind leg, and in my indigna¬
tion I took him by the ear and flung him round on to a
heap of mud and filth. He rose and squared at me in
a most plucky fashion ; he hardly came up to my chin,
and I refused to fight him. A crowd collected round us,
and as I tried to explain to the bystanders the cause of

IOO

PETER I BEETS ON

our quarrel, he managed to hit me in the face with a
very muddy fist.

“ Bravo, little un ! ” shouted the crowd, and he
squared up again. I felt wretchedly ashamed, and
warded off all his blows, telling him that I could not hit
him or I should kill him.

“ Yah !” shouted the crowd again; “go it, little un !
Let ’im ’ave it ! The long un’s showing the white feather,”
etc., and finally I gave him a slight backhander that
made his nose bleed and seemed to demoralise him com¬
pletely. “Yah!” shouted the crowd; “’it one yer own
size ! ”

I looked round in despair and rage, and picking out
the biggest man I could see, said, “Are you big enough?”
The crowd roared with laughter.

“Well, guv’ner, I dessay I might do at a pinch,” he
replied ; and I tried to slap his face, but missed it, and
received such a tremendous box on the ear that I was
giddy for a second or two, and when I recovered I found
him still grinning at me. I tried to hit him again and
again, but always missed ; and at last, without doing me
any particular damage, he laid me flat three times running
on to the very heap where I had flung the drover, the
crowd applauding madly. Dazed, hatless, and panting,
and covered with filth, I stared at him in hopeless
impotence. He put out his hand, and said, “You’re all
right, ain’t yer, guv’ner ? I ’ope I ’aven’t ’urt yer ! My
name’s Tom Sayers. If you’d a ’it me, I should ’a’ gone
down like a ninepin, and I ain’t so sure as I should ever
’ave got up again.”

He was to become the most famous fiehtiner man in
England !

PETER IBBETSON

101

I wrung his hand and thanked him, and offered him
a sovereign, which he refused ; and then he led me into
a room in a public-house close by, where he washed and
brushed me down, and insisted on treating me to a glass
of brandy-and-water.

I have had a fondness for fighting-men ever since,
and a respect for the noble science I had never felt before.
He was many inches shorter than I, and did not look at
all the Hercules he was.

He told me I was the strongest- built man for a
youngster that he had ever seen, barring that I was “ rather
leggy.” I do not know if he was sincere or not, but no
possible compliment could have pleased me more. Such
is the vanity of youth.

And here, although it savours somewhat of vain¬
gloriousness, I cannot resist the temptation of relating
another adventure of the same kind, but in which I
showed to greater advantage.

It was on a Boxing-day (oddly enough), and I was
returning with Lintot and one of his boys from a walk in
the Highgate Fields. As we plodded our dirty way
homeward through the Caledonian Road we were stopped
by a crowd outside a public-house. A gigantic drayman
(they always seem bigger than they really are) was
squaring up to a poor drunken lout of a navvy not half
his size, who had been put up to fight him, and who was
quite incapable of even an attempt at self-defence ; he
could scarcely lift his arms. I thought at first it was
only horse-play ; and as little Joe Lintot wanted to see,
I put him up on my shoulder, just as the drayman, who
had been drinking, but was not drunk, and had a most
fiendishly brutal face, struck the poor tipsy wretch with

102

PETER IB BETS ON

all his might between the eyes and felled him (it
was like poleaxing a bullock), to the delight of the
crowd.

Little Joe, a very gentle and sensitive boy, began to
cry ; and his father, who had the pluck of a bull-terrier,
wanted to interfere, in spite of his diminutive stature. I
was also beside myself with indignation, and pulling off
my coat and hat, which I gave to Lintot, I made my way
to the drayman, who was offering to fight any three men
in the crowd, an offer that met with no response.

“ Now then, you cowardly skunk ! ” I said, tucking up
my shirt sleeves ; !< stand up, and I will knock every tooth
dowm your ugly throat.”

His face went the colours of a mottled Stilton cheese,
and he asked wrhat I meddled with him for. A ring-
formed itself, and I felt the sympathy of the crowd with me
this time — a very agreeable sensation !

“ Now then, up with your arms. I’m going to kill
you ! ”

“ I ain’t going to fight you, mister ; I ain’t going to
fight nobody. Just you let me alone.”

“ Oh yes, you are, or else you’re going down on your
marrow-bones to beg pardon for being a brutal, cowardly
skunk ; ” and I gave him a slap on the face that rang like
a pistol-shot — a most finished, satisfactory, and successful
slap this time ! My finger-tips tingle at the bare remem¬
brance.

He tried to escape, but was held opposite to me. He
began to snivel and whimper, and said he had never
meddled with me, and asked what should I meddle with
him for ?

“ Then down on your knees — quick — this instant ! ”

pt’Riri tt^il

THE BIG DRAYMAN,

104

PETER IB BETS ON

and I made as if I were going to begin serious business
at once and no mistake.

So down he plumped on his knees, and there he
actually fainted from sheer excess of emotion.

As I was helped on with my coat, I tasted, for once
in my life, the sweets of popularity, and knew what it was
to be the idol of a mob.

Little Joey Lintot and his brothers and sisters, who
had never held me in any particular regard before that I
knew of, worshipped me from that day forward.

And I should be insincere if I did not confess that
on that one occasion I was rather pleased with myself,
although the very moment I stood opposite the huge,
hulking, beer-sodden brute (who had looked so formidable
from afar), I felt, with a not unpleasant sense of relief, that
he did not stand a chance. He was only big, and even at
that I beat him.

The real honours of the day belonged to Lintot, who,
I am convinced, was ready to act the David to that Goliath.
He had the real stomach for fighting, which I lacked, as
very tall men are often said to do.

And that, perhaps, is why I have made so much of
my not very wonderful prowess on that occasion ; not,
indeed, that I am physically a coward — at least, I do
not think so. If I thought I were I should avow it
with no more shame than I should avow that I had
a bad digestion, or a weak heart, which makes cowards
of us all.

It is that I hate a row, and violence, and bloodshed,
even from a nose — any nose, either my own or mv neigh¬
bour’s.

PETER 1 BEETS ON

105

There are slums at the east end of London that many
fashionable people know something of by this time ; I got
to know them by heart. In addition to the charm of the
mere slum, there was the eternal fascination of the
seafaring element ; of Jack ashore — a lovable creature
who touches nothing but what he adorns it in his own
peculiar fashion.

I constantly haunted the docks, where the smell of tar
and the sight of ropes and masts filled me with unutterable
longings for the sea — for distant lands — for anywhere but
where it was my fate to be.

I talked to ship captains and mates and sailors, and
heard many marvellous tales, as the reader may well
believe, and framed for myself visions of cloudless skies,
and sapphire seas, and coral reefs ; and groves of spice,
and dusky youths in painted plumage roving, and friendly
isles where a lovely half-clad, barefooted Neuha would
wave her torch, and lead me, her Torquil, by the hand
through caverns of bliss 1

Especially did I haunt a wharf by London Bridge,
from whence two steamers — the Seine and the Dolphin ,
I believe — started on alternate days for Boulogne -sur-
Mer.

I used to watch the happy passengers bound for
France, some of them, in their holiday spirits, already
fraternising together on the sunny deck, and iussing with
camp-stools and magazines and novels and bottles of bitter
beer, or retiring before the funnel to smoke the pipe of
peace.

The sound of the boiler getting up steam — what
delicious music it was ! Would it ever get up steam for
me ? The very smell of the cabin, the very feel of the

io6

PETER IB BETS ON

brass gangway and the brass -bound, oil -clothed steps,
were delightful ; and downstairs, on the snowy cloth,
were the cold beef and ham, the beautiful fresh mustard,

THE BOULOGNE STEAMER.

the bottles of pale ale and stout. O happy travellers,
who could afford all this, and France into the bargain '

o

Soon would a large white awning make the after¬
deck a paradise, from which, by and by, to watch the

PETER IBBETSON

107

quickly gliding panorama of the Thames. The bell would
sound for non-passengers like me to go ashore—" Que
diable allait-il faire dans cette galere !” as Uncle Ibbetson
would have said. The steamer, disengaging itself from
the wharf with a pleasant yohoing of manly throats and
a slow, intermittent plashing of the paddle-wheels, would
carefully pick its sunny eastward way among the small
craft of the river, while a few handkerchiefs were waved
in a friendly, make-believe farewell — auf wiedersehen !

Oh ! to stand by that unseasonably sou’-westered man
at the wheel, and watch St. Paul’s and London Bridge
and the Tower of London fade out of sight — never,
never to see them again ! No auf wiedersehen for me !

Sometimes I would turn my footsteps westward and
fill my hungry, jealous eyes with a sight of the gay
summer procession in Hyde Park, or listen to the band
in Kensington Gardens, and see beautiful, well-dressed
women, and hear their sweet, refined voices and happy
laughter ; and a longing would come into my heart more
passionate than my longing for the sea and France and
distant lands, and quite as unutterable. I would even
forget Neuha and her torch.

After this it was a dreary downfall to go and dine
for tenpence all by myself, and finish up with a book at
my solitary lodgings at Pentonville. 1 he book would
not let itself be read ; it sulked and had to be laid down,
for “ Beautiful woman ! beautiful girl ! spelled them¬
selves between me and the printed page. 1 ranslate me
those words into French, O ye who can even rendei
Shakespeare into P'rench Alexandrines “Belle femme?
Belle fille ? ” Ha! ha!

If you want to get as near it as you can, you will

io8

PETER I BEETS ON

have to write, “ Belle Anglaise,” or “Belle Americaine ” ;
only then will you be understood, even in France !

Ah ! elle etait bien belle, Madame Seraskier !

At other times, more happily inspired, I would slake
my thirst for nature by long walks into the country.
Flampstead was my Passy — the Leg-of-Mutton Pond
my Mare d’Auteuil ; Richmond was my St. Cloud, with
Kew Gardens for a Bois de Boulogne ; and Hampton
Court made a very fair Versailles — how incomparably
fairer, even a pupil of Lintot’s should know.

And after such healthy fatigue and fragrant im¬
pressions the tenpenny dinner had a better taste, the
little front parlour in Pentonville was more like a home,
the book more like a friend.

For I read all I could get in English or French.
Novels, travels, history, poetry, science — everything came
as grist to that most melancholy mill, my mind.

I tried to write ; I tried to draw ; I tried to make
myself an inner life apart from the sordid, commonplace
ugliness of my outer one — a private oasis of my own ;
and to raise myself a little, if only mentally, above the cir¬
cumstances in which it had pleased the Fates to place me.1

1 Note. — It is with great reluctance that I now come to my cousin’s account
of the deplorable opinions he held, at that period of his life, on the most
important subject that can ever engross the mind of man.

I have left out much , but I feel that in suppressing it altogether I should
rob his sad story of all its moral significance ; for it cannot be doubted that
most of his unhappiness is attributable to the defective religious training of his
childhood, and that his parents (otherwise the best and kindest people I have
ever known) incurred a terrible responsibility when they determined to leave
him “ unbiassed,” as he calls it, at that tender, susceptible age when the mind is
“ Wax to receive, and marble to retain.”

Madge Tlunket.

HAMPSTEAD WAS MY PASSY.

no

PETER IB BETS ON

It goes without saying that, like many thoughtful
youths of a melancholy temperament, impecunious and
discontented with their lot, and much given to the smoking
of strong tobacco (on an empty stomach), I continuously
brooded on the problems of existence — free-will and
determinism, the whence and why and whither of man,
the origin of evil, the immortality of the soul, the futility
of life, etc., and made myself very miserable over such
questions.

Often the inquisitive passer-by, had he peeped through

the blinds of No.- - Wharton Street, Pentonville, late

at night, would have been rewarded by the touching
spectacle of a huge, raw-boned ex-private in her Majesty’s
Life Guards, with his head bowed over the black and
yellow keyboard of a venerable square pianoforte (on
which he could not play), dropping the bitter tear of
loneliness and Weltschmerz combined.

It never once occurred to me to seek relief in the
bosom of any church.

Some types are born and not made. I was a born
“ infidel ” ; if ever there was a congenital agnostic, one
agnostically constituted from his very birth, it was I.
Not that I had ever heard such an expression as agnosti¬
cism ; it is an invention of late years. . . .

“ J’avais fait de la prose toute ma vie sans le savoir ! ”

But almost the first conscious dislike I can remember
was for the black figure of the priest, and there were
several of these figures in Passy.

Monsieur le Major called them maitres corbeaux, and
seemed to hold them in light esteem. Dr. Seraskier
hated them ; his gentle Catholic wife had grown to dis-

PETER IB BETS ON

i

trust them. My loving heretic mother loved them not ;
my father, a Catholic born and bred, had an equal
aversion. They had persecuted his gods — the thinkers,
philosophers, and scientific discoverers — Galileo, Bruno,
Copernicus ; and brought to his mind the cruelties of
the Holy Inquisition, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew ;
and I always pictured them as burning little heretics
alive if they had their will — Eton jackets, white chimney¬
pot hats, and all !

I have no doubt they were in reality the best and
kindest of men.

The parson (and parsons were not lacking in Penton-
ville) was not so insidiously repellent as the blue-cheeked,
blue-chinned Passy priest ; but he was by no means to
me a picturesque or sympathetic apparition, with his
weddedness, his whiskers, his black trousers, his frockcoat,
his tall hat, his little white tie, his consciousness of being
a “ gentleman ” by profession. Most unattractive, also,
were the cheap brand-new churches wherein he spoke the
word to his dreary- looking Sunday- clad flock, with
scarcely one of whom his wife would have sat down to
dinner — especially if she had been chosen from among
them !

To watch that flock pouring in of a Sunday morning,
or afternoon, or evening, at the summons of those bells,
and pouring out again after the long service, and banal,
perfunctory sermon, was depressing. Week-days, in
Pentonville, were depressing enough ; but Sundays were
depressing beyond words, though nobody seemed to
think so but myself. Early training had acclimatised
them.

I have outlived those physical antipathies of my salad

I 12

PETER IB BETS ON

days ; even the sight of an Anglican bishop is no longer
displeasing to me ; on the contrary ; and I could absolutely
rejoice in the beauty of a cardinal.

Indeed, I am now friends with both a parson and a
priest, and do not know which of the two I love and
respect the most. They ought to hate me, but they
do not ; they pity me too much, I suppose. I am too
negative to rouse in either the deep theological hate ; and
all the little hate that the practice of love and charity
has left in their kind hearts is reserved for each other —
an unquenchable hate in which they seem to glory, and
which rages all the more that it has to be concealed.
It saddens me to think that I am a bone of contention
between them !

And yet, for all my unbelief, the Bible was my
favourite book, and the Psalms my adoration ; and most
truly can I affirm that my mental attitude has ever been
one of reverence and humility.

But every argument that has ever been advanced
against Christianity (and I think I know them all by this
time) had risen spontaneously and unprompted within me,
and they have all seemed to me unanswerable, and
indeed, as yet, unanswered. Nor had any creed of which
I ever heard appeared to me either credible or attractive
or even sensible, but for the central figure of the Deity —
a Diety that in no case could ever be mine.

The awe-inspiring and unalterable conception that
had wrought itself into my consciousness, whether I would
or no, was that of a Being infinitely more abstract,
remote, and inaccessible than any the genius of mankind
has ever evolved after its own image and out of the
needs of its own heart — inscrutable, unthinkable,

PETER IB BETS ON

ii3

unspeakable ; above all human passions, beyond the
reach of any human appeal ; One upon whose attributes it
was futile to speculate — One whose name was It, not
He.

The thought of total annihilation was uncongenial, but
had no terror.

Even as a child I had shrewdly suspected that hell
was no more than a vulgar threat for naughty little boys
and girls, and heaven than a vulgar bribe, from the
casual way in which either was meted out to me as my
probable portion, by servants and such people, according
to the way I behaved. Such things were never mentioned
to me by either my father or mother, or M. le Major, or
the Seraskiers — the only people in whom I trusted.

But for the bias against the priest, I was left
unbiassed at that tender and susceptible age. I had
learned my catechism and read my Bible, and used to say
the Lord’s Prayer as I went to bed, and “ God bless papa
and mamma,” and the rest, in the usual peifunctoiy
manner.

Never a word against religion was said in my hearing
by those few on whom I had pinned my childish faith ; on
the other hand, no such importance was attached to it,
apparently, as was attached to the virtues of truthfulness,
courage, generosity, self-denial, politeness, and especially
consideration for others, high or low, human and animal
alike.

I imagine that my parents must have compromised
the matter between them, and settled that I should work
out all the graver problems of existence for myself, when
I came to a thinking age, out of my own conscience, and
such knowledge of life as I should acquire, and such help

I

PETER IB BETS ON

1 14

as they would no doubt have given me, according to their
lights, had they survived.

I did so, and made myself a code of morals to live
by, in which religion had but a small part.

For me there was but one sin, and that was cruelty,
because I hated it ; though Nature, for inscrutable
purposes of her own, almost teaches it as a virtue. All
sins that did not include cruelty were merely sins against
health, or taste, or common sense, or public expediency.

Free-will was impossible. We could only seem to
will freely, and that only within the limits of a small
triangle, whose sides were heredity, education, and cir¬
cumstance — a little geometrical arrangement of my own, of
which I felt not a little proud, although it does not quite
go on all-fours ; perhaps because it is only a triangle.

That is, we could will fast enough — too fast ; but
could not will how to will : fortunately, for we were not
fit as yet, and for a long time to come, to be trusted,
constituted as we are !

Even the characters of a novel must act according to
the nature, training, and motives their creator, the novelist,
has supplied them with, or we put the novel down, and
read something else ; for human nature must be consistent
with itself in fiction as well as in fact. Even in its
madness there must be a method, so how could the will
be free ?

To pray for any personal boon or remission of evil
— to bend the knee, or lift one’s voice in praise or thanks¬
giving for any earthly good that had befallen one, either
through inheritance, or chance, or one’s own successful
endeavour — was in my eyes simply futile ; but, putting
its futility aside, it was an act of servile presumption, of

PE TER IB BE TSON

U5

wheedling impertinence, not without suspicion of a lively
sense of favours to come.

It seemed to me as though the Jews — a superstitious
and business-like people, who know what they want and
do not care how they get it — must have taught us to pray
like that.

It was not the sweet simple child, innocently
beseeching that to-morrow might be fine for its holiday,
or that Santa Claus would be generous ; it was the
cunning trader, fawning, flattering, propitiating, bribing
with fulsome sycophantic praise (an insult in itself), as well
as burnt-offerings ; working for his own success here and
hereafter, and his enemy’s confounding.

It was the grovelling of the dog, without the dog’s
single-hearted love, stronger than even its fear or its sense
of self-interest.

What an attitude for one whom God had made after
His own image — even toward his Maker!

The only permissible prayer was a prayer for courage
or resignation ; for that was a prayer turned inward, an
appeal to what is best in ourselves — our honour, our
stoicism, our self-respect.

And for a small detail, grace before and after meals
seemed to me especially self-complacent and iniquitous
when there were so many with scarcely ever a meal to say
grace for. The only decent and pioper giace was to
give half of one’s meal away — not, indeed, that 1 was in
the habit of doing so ! But, at least, I had the grace to
reproach myself for my want of charity, and that was my
only grace.

PETER IBBETSON

1 1 6

Fortunately, since we had no free-will of our own, the
tendency that impelled us was upward, like the sparks,

WELTSCHMERZ.

and bore us with it willy-nilly — the good and the bad
and the worst and the best.

PETER IB BETS ON

ii 7

By seeing this clearly, and laying it well to heart,
the motive was supplied to us for doing all we could in
furtherance of that upward tendency — pour aider le bon
Dieu — that we might rise the faster and reach Him the
sooner, if He were ! And when once the human will has
been set going, like a rocket or a clock or a steam-engine,
and in the right direction, what can it not achieve?

We should in time control circumstance instead of
being controlled thereby ; education would day by day
become more adapted to one consistent end ; and finally,
conscience-stricken, we should guide heredity with our own
hands instead of leaving it to blind chance ; unless, indeed,
a well-instructed paternal government wisely took the
reins, and only sanctioned the union of people who were
thoroughly in love with each other, after due and careful
elimination of the unfit.

Thus, cruelty should at least be put into harness, and
none of its valuable energy wasted on wanton experiment,
as it is by Nature.

And thus, as the boy is father to the man, should the
human race one day be father to — what ?

That is just where my speculations would arrest
themselves ; that was the x of a sum in rule of three,
not to be worked out by Peter Ibbetson, Architect and
Surveyor, ‘Wharton Street, Pentonville.

As the orang-outang is to Shakespeare, so is Shake¬
speare to . . . x ?

As the female chimpanzee is to the Venus of Milo, so
is the Venus of Milo to . . . x ?

Finally, multiply these two x ’s by each other, and try
to conceive the result !

PETER IB BETS ON

1 18

Such was, crudely, the simple creed I held at this
time ; and, such as it was, I had worked it all out for
myself with no help from outside — a poor thing, but
mine own ; or, as I expressed it in the words of De
Musset, “ Mon verre n’est pas grand- — mais je bois dans
mon verre.”

For though such ideas were in the air, like wholesome
clouds, they had not yet condensed themselves into printed
words for the million. People did not dare to write about
these things, as they do at present, in popular novels and
cheap magazines, that all who run may read, and learn to
think a little for themselves, and honestly say what they
think, without having to dread a howl of execration, clerical
and lay.

And it was not only that I thought like this and could
not think otherwise ; it was that I felt like this and could
not feel otherwise ; and I should have appeared to myself
as wicked, weak, and base had I ever even desired to think
or feel otherwise, however personally despairing of this
life a traitor to what I jealously guarded as my best
instincts.

And yet to me the faith of others, if but unaggressive,
humble, and sincere, had often seemed touching and
pathetic, and sometimes even beautiful, as childish things
seem sometimes beautiful, even in those who are no longer
children and should have put them away. It had caused
many heroic lives, and rendered many obscure lives blame¬
less and happy j and then its fervour and passion seemed
to burn with a lasting flame.

At brief moments now and then, and especially in the
young, unfaith can be as fervent and as passionate as faith,
and just as narrow and unreasonable, as / found ; but

PETER IB BETS ON

1 19

alas ! its flame was intermittent, and its light was not a
kindly light.

It had no food for babes ; it could not comfort the
sick or sorry ; nor resolve into submissive harmony the
inner discords of the soul ; nor compensate us for our own
failures and shortcomings ; nor make up to us in any way
for the success and prosperity of others who did not choose
to think as we did.

It was without balm for wounded pride, or stay for
weak despondency, or consolation for bereavement ; its
steep and rugged thoroughfares led to no promised land
of beatitude, and there were no soft resting-places by the
way.

Its only weapon was steadfastness ; its only shield, en¬
durance ; its earthly hope, the common weal ; its earthly
prize, the opening of all roads to knowledge, and the
release from a craven inheritance of fear ; its final guerdon
— sleep ? Who knows ?

Sleep was not bad.

So that simple, sincere, humble, devout, earnest, fer¬
vent, passionate, and over-conscientious young unbelievers
like myself had to be very strong and brave and self-
reliant (which I was not), and very much in love with
what they conceived to be the naked Truth (a figure of
doubtful personal attractions at first sight), to tread the
ways of life with that unvarying cheerfulness, confidence,
and serenity which the believer claims as his own special
and particular apanage.

So much for my profession of unfaith, shared (had
I but known it) by many much older and wiser and better
educated than I, and only reached by them after great
sacrifice of long-cherished illusions, and terrible pangs of

120

PETER IB BETS ON

soul-questioning — a struggle and a wrench that I was
spared through my kind parents’ thoughtfulness when I
was a little boy.

It thus behoved me to make the most of this life ;
since, for all I knew, or believed, or even hoped to the
contrary, to-morrow we must die.

Not, indeed, that I might eat and drink and be merry ;
heredity and education had not inclined me that way, I
suppose, and circumstances did not allow it ; but that I
might try and live up to the best ideal I could frame out
of my own conscience and the past teaching of mankind.
And man, whose conception of the Infinite and divine has
been so inadequate, has furnished us with such human
examples (ancient and modern, Hebrew, Pagan, Buddhist,
Christian, Agnostic, and what not) as the best of us can
only hope to follow at a distance.

I would sometimes go to my morning’s work, my heart
elate with lofty hope and high resolve.

How easy and simple it seemed to lead a life without
fear, or reproach, or self-seeking, or any sordid hope of
personal reward either here or hereafter ! — a life of stoical
endurance, invincible patience and meekness, indomitable
cheerfulness and self-denial !

After all, it was only for another forty or fifty years at
the most, and what was that ? And after that — que scais-je?

The thought was inspiring indeed !

By luncheon-time (and luncheon consisted of an Aber-
nethy biscuit and a glass of water, and several pipes of
shag tobacco, cheap and rank) some subtle change would
come over the spirit of my dream.

Other people did not have high resolves. Some

PETER IB BETS ON

I 2 I

people had very bad tempers, and rubbed one very much
the wrong way. . . .

What a hideous place was Pentonville to slave away
one’s life in ! . . .

What a grind it was to be for ever making designs for
little new shops in Rosoman Street, and not making them
well, it seemed ! . . .

Why should a squinting, pock-marked, bow-legged,
hunchbacked little Judkins (a sight to make a recruiting
sergeant shudder) for ever taunt one with having enlisted
as a private soldier ? . . .

And then why should one be sneeringly told to “ hit a
fellow one’s own size,” merely because, provoked beyond
endurance, one just grabbed him by the slack of his
trousers and gently shook him out of them on to the floor,
terrified but quite unhurt ? . . .

And so on, and so on ; constant little pin-pricks, sor¬
did humiliations, uglinesses, meannesses, and dirt, that
called forth in resistance all that was lowest and least
commendable in one’s self.

One has attuned one’s nerves to the leading of a for¬
lorn hope, and a gnat gets into one’s eye, or a little cinder
grit, and there it sticks : and there is no question of lead¬
ing any forlorn hope, after all, and never will be ; all that
was in the imagination only : it is always gnats and cinder
grits, gnats and cinder grits.

By the evening I had ignominiously broken down, and
was plunged in the depths of an exasperated pessimism
too deep even for tears, and would have believed myself
the meanest and most miserable of mankind, but that
everybody else, without exception, was even meanei and
miserabler than myself.

I 22

PETER IB BETS ON

They could still eat and drink and be merry. I could
not, and did not even want to.

And so on, day after day, week after week, for months
and years. . . .

Thus I grew weary in time of my palling individuality,
ever the same through all these uncontrollable variations
of mood.

Oh that alternate ebb and flow of the spirits ! It is
a disease, and, what is most distressing, it is no real
change ; it is more sickeningly monotonous than absolute
stagnation itself. And from that dreary seesaw I could
never escape, except through the gates of dreamless sleep,
the death in life ; for even in our dreams we are still our¬
selves. There was no rest !

I loathed the very sight of myself in the shop windows
as I went by ; and yet I always looked for it there, in the
forlorn hope of at least finding some alteration, even for
the worse. I passionately longed to be somebody else ;
and yet I had never met anybody else I could have borne
to be for a moment.

And then the loneliness of us !

Each separate unit of our helpless race is inexorably
bounded by the inner surface of his own mental periphery,
a jointless armour in which there is no weak place, never
a fault, never a single gap of egress for ourselves, of ingress
for the nearest and dearest of our fellow-units. At only
five points can we just touch each other, and all that is —
and that only by the function of our poor senses — from the
outside. In vain we rack them that we may get a little
closer to the best beloved and most implicitly trusted ;
ever in vain, from the cradle to the grave.

PETER 1 BEETS ON

123

Why should so fantastic a thought have persecuted
me so cruelly ? I knew nobody with whom I should
have felt such a transfusion of soul even tolerable for a
second. I cannot tell ! But it was like a gadfly which
drove me to fatigue my body that I should have by day
the stolid peace of mind that comes of healthy physical
exhaustion ; that I should sleep at night the dreamless
sleep — the death in life.

“ Of such materials wretched men are made ! ”
Especially wretched young men ; and the wretcheder
one is, the more one smokes ; and the more one smokes,
the wretcheder one gets — a vicious circle !

Such was my case. I grew to long for the hour of
my release (as I expressed it pathetically to myself), and
caressed the idea of suicide. I even composed for myself
a little rhymed epitaph in French which I thought very
neat —

Je n’etais point. Je fus.

Je ne suis plus.

Oh to perish in some noble cause — to die saving
another’s life, even another’s worthless life, to which he
clung !

I remember formulating this wish, in all sinceiity, one
moonlit night as I walked up Frith Street, Soho. I came
upon a little group of excited people gathered together at
the foot of a house built over a shop. From a broken
window-pane on the second floor an ominous cloud of
smoke rose like a column into the windless sky. An
ordinary ladder was placed against the house, which, they
said, was densely inhabited ; but no fire-engine 01 file-
escape had arrived as yet, and it appeared useless to tiy

124

PETER IB BETS ON

and rouse the inmates by kicking and beating at the door
any longer.

A brave man was wanted — a very brave man, who
would climb the ladder, and make his way into the house
through the broken window. Here was a forlorn hope to
lead at last !

Such a man was found. To my lasting shame and
contrition, it was not I.

He was short and thick and middle-aged, and had a
very jolly red face and immense whiskers — quite a
common sort of man, who seemed by no means tired of
life.

His heroism was wasted, as it happened; for the house
was an empty one, as we all heard, to our immense relief,
before he had managed to force a passage into the
burning room. His whiskers were not even singed !

Nevertheless I slunk home, and gave up all thoughts
of self-destruction — even in a noble cause ; and there, in
penance, I somewhat hastily committed to flame the
plodding labour of many midnights — an elaborate copy in
pen and ink, line for line, of Retel’s immortal wood-
engraving “ Der Tod als Freund,” that Mrs. Lintot had
been kind enough to lend me — and under which I had
written, in beautiful black Gothic letters and red capitals
(and without the slightest sense of either humour or
irreverence), the following poem, which had cost me
infinite pains

i

F, i, fi — n, i, ni !

Bon Uieu Pere, j’ai fini . . .

Vous qui rn’avez tant puni,

Dans ma triste vie,

PETER I BEETS ON

I25

Pour tant d’horribles forfaits
Cue je ne commis jamais,
Laissez-moi jouir en paix
De mon agonie !

ii

Les faveurs que je Vous dois,

Je les compte sur mes doigts :
Tout infirme que je sois,

Qa se fait bien vite !

Prenez patience, et comptez
Tous mes maux — puis computez
Toutes Vos sdverites —

Vous me tiendrez quitte !

' III

Ne poursouffrir, et-soufifrant —
Bas, honni, bete, ignorant,
.Vienx,rlaid, xhetif— et mourant
Dans mon trou sansplainte,
Je suis aussi sans ddsir.

Autre que d’en bien finir—
Sans regret, sans repentir —
Sans espoir ni crainte !

IV

Pere inflexible et jaloux,

Votre Fils est mort pour nous !
Aussi, je reste envers Vous
Si bien sans rancune,

Que je voudrais, sans faqon,
Faire, au seuil de ma prison,
Ouelque petite oraison . . .

Je n’en sais pas une !

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PETER I BEETS ON

v

J’entends sonner l’Angelus
Oui rassemble Vos Elus :

Pour moi, du bercail exclus,
C’est la mort qui sonne !
Prier ne profite rien . . .
Pardonner est le seul bien :
C’est le Votre, et c’est le mien :
Moi, je Vous pardonne !

VI

Soyez d’un dgard pareil !

S’il est quelque vrai sommeil
Sans ni reve, ni reveil,

Ouvrez-m’en la porte —

Faites que l’immense Oubli
Couvre, sous un dernier pli,

Dans mon corps ensdveli,

Ma conscience morte !

Oh me duffer ! What a hopeless failure was I in all
things, little and big !

SUNDAY IN PENTONVILLE.

HAD no friends but the Lintots and
their friends — “ Les amis de nos
amis sont nos amis ! ”

My cousin Alfred had
gone into the army, like his
father before him. My
cousin Charlie had gone
into the Church, and we
had drifted completely
apart. My grandmother
was dead. My Aunt
Plunket, a great invalid,
lived in Florence. Her
daughter, Madge, was in
India, happily married to
a young soldier, who is now a most distinguished general.

The Lintots held their heads high as representatives
of a liberal profession, and an old Pentonville family !
People were generally exclusive in those days — an
exclusiveness that was chiefly kept up by the ladies.
There were charmed circles even in Pentonville.

Among the most exclusive were the Lintots. Let us
hope, in common justice, that those they excluded were
at least able to exclude others !

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PETER IB RETS ON

I have eaten their bread and salt, and it would ill
become me to deny that their circle was charming as well
as charmed. But I had no gift for making friends,
although I was often attracted by people the very opposite
of myself ; especially by little, clever, quick, but not too
familiar men ; but even if they were disposed to make
advances, a miserable shyness and stiffness of manner on
my part, that I could not help, would raise a barrier of
ice between us. . ' .

They were most hospitable people, these good Lintots,
and had many friends, arid. gave many parties, which my
miserable shyness prevented me from enjoying to the full.
They were both too stiff and- too free.

In the drawing-room Mrs. Lintot and one or two other
ladies, severely dressed, would play the severest music in
a manner that did not mitigate its severity. They were
merciless ! It was nearly always Bach, or Hummel, or
Scarlatti, each of whom, they would say, could write both
like an artist and a gentleman — a very rare but indispens¬
able combination, it seemed.

Other ladies, young and middle-aged, and a few dumb¬
struck youths like myself, would be suffered to listen, but
never to retaliate — never to play or sing back again.

If one ventured to ask for a song without words by
Mendelssohn — or a song with words, even by Schubert,
even with German words — one was rebuked and made to
blush for the crime of musical frivolity.

Meanwhile, in Lintot’s office (built by himself in the
back garden), grave men and true, pending the supper
hour, would smoke and sip spirits-and-water, and talk shop ;
formally at first, and with much politeness. But gradu¬
ally, feeling their way, as it were, they would relax into

In you come with your cold music
Till I creep thro' every nerve."

K

LA BELLA CAPRICCIOSA, BY HUMMEL.

>3°

PETER IB BETS ON

social unbuttonment, and drop the “Mister” before each
other’s names (to be resumed next morning), and indulge
in lively professional chaff, which would soon become per¬
sonal and free and boisterous — a good-humoured kind of
warfare in which I did not shine, for lack of quickness
and repartee. For instance, they would ask one whether
one would rather be a bigger fool than one looked, or look
a bigger fool than one was ; and whichever way one
answered the question, the retort would be that “ that was
impossible ! ” amid roars of laughter from all but one.

So that I would take a middle course, and spend most
of the evening on the stairs and in the hall, and study
(with an absorbing interest much too well feigned to look
natural) the photographs of famous cathedrals and public
buildings till supper came ; when, by assiduously attend¬
ing on the ladies, I would cause my miserable existence
to be remembered, and forgiven ; and soon forgotten
again, I fear.

I hope I shall not be considered an overweening cox¬
comb for saying that, on the whole, I found more favour
with the ladies than with the gentlemen ; especially
at supper-time.

After supper there would be a change — for the better,
some thought. Lintot, emboldened by good cheer and
good fellowship, would become unduly, immensely, up¬
roariously funny, in spite of his wife. He had a genuine
gift of buffoonery. His friends would whisper to each
other that Lintot was “on,” and encourage him. Bach
and Hummel and Scarlatti were put on the shelf, and the
young people would have a good time. There were comic
songs and negro melodies, with a chorus all round. Lin¬
tot would sing “ Vilikins and his Dinah,” in the manner

PETER IB BETS ON

131

of Mr. Robson, so well that even Mrs. Lintot’s stern mask
would relax into indulgent smiles. It was irresistible.
And when the party broke up, we could all (thanks to
oui host) honestly thank our hostess “ for a very pleasant
evening,’ and cheerfully, yet almost regretfully, wish her
good-night.

It is good to laugh sometimes — wisely, if one can ; if
not, quocumque inodo ! There are seasons when even “ the
crackling of thorns under a pot ” has its uses. It seems
to warm the pot — all the pots — and all the emptiness
thereof, if they be empty.

Once, indeed, I actually made a friend, but he did not
last me very long.

It happened thus : Mrs. Lintot gave a grander party
than usual. One of the invited was Mr. Moses Lyon,
the great picture-dealer — a client of Lintot’s ; and he
brought with him young Raphael Merridew, the already
famous painter, the most attractive youth I had ever seen.
Small and slight, but beautifully made, and dressed in the
extreme of fashion, with a handsome face, bright and
polite manners, and an irresistible voice, he became his
laurels well ; he would have been sufficiently dazzling
without them. Never had those hospitable doors in
Middleton Square been opened to so brilliant a guest.

I was introduced to him, and he discovered that the
bridge of my nose was just suited for the face of the sun-
god in his picture of “ The Sun-god and the Dawn-
maiden,” and begged I would favour him with a sitting or
two.

Proud indeed was I to accede to such a request, and I
gave him many sittings. I used to rise at dawn to sit,

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PETER IB BETS ON

before my work at Lintot’s began ; and to sit again as soon
as I could be spared.

It seems I not only had the nose and brow of a sun-
god (who is not supposed to be a very intellectual person),
but also his arms and his torso ; and sat for these too.

I have been vain of myself ever since.

During these sittings, which he made delightful, I
grew to love him as David loved Jonathan.

We settled that we would go to the Derby together
in a hansom. I engaged the smartest hansom in Lon¬
don, days beforehand. On the great Wednesday morning
I was punctual with it at his door in Charlotte Street.
There was another hansom there already — a smarter
hansom still than mine, for it was a private one — and
he came down and told me he had altered his mind,
and was going with Lyon, who had asked him the evening
before.

“ One of the first picture-dealers in London, my dear
fellow. Hang it all, you know, I couldn’t refuse — awfully

I

sorry !

So I drove to the Derby in solitary splendour ; but
the bright weather, the humours of the road, all the gay
scenes were thrown away upon me, such was the bitterness
of my heart.

In the early afternoon I saw Merridew lunching on
the top of a drag, amongst some men of smart and aristo¬
cratic appearance. He seemed to be the life of the party,
and gave me a good-humoured nod as I passed. I soon
found Lyon sitting disconsolate in his hansom, scowling
and solitary ; he invited me to lunch with him, and dis¬
embosomed himself of a load of bitterness as intense
as mine (which I kept to myself). The shrewd Hebrew

PETER IB BETS ON

i

o ■**

jj

tradesman was sunk in the warm-hearted, injured friend.
Merridew had left Lyon for the Earl of Chiselhurst, just
as he had left me for Lyon.

That was a dull Derby for us both.

A few days later I met Merridew, radiant as ever.
All he said was —

“ Awful shame of me to drop old Lyon for Chisel¬
hurst, eh ! But an earl, my dear fellow ! Hang it all,
you know ! Poor old Mo’ had to get back in his han¬
som all by himself ; but he’s bought the ‘ Sun-god’ all the
same.”

Merridew soon dropped me altogether, to my great
sorrow, for I forgave him his Derby desertion as quickly
as Lyon did, and would have forgiven him anything. He
was one of those for whom allowances are always being
made, and with a good grace.

He died before he was thirty, poor boy ; but his fame
will never die. The “ Sun-god ” (even with the bridge of
that nose which had been so woefully put out of joint) is
enough by itself to place him among the immortals.
Lyon sold it to Lord Chiselhurst for three thousand
pounds — it had cost him five hundred. It is now in the
National Gallery.

Poetical justice was satisfied !

Nor was I more fortunate in love than in friendship.

All the exclusiveness in the world cannot exclude good
and beautiful maidens, and these were not lacking, even in
Pentonville.

There is always one maiden much more beautiful and
good than all the others — like Esmeralda among the ladies
of the Hotel de Gondelaurier. There was such a maiden

DULL DERBY FOR US BOTH.

PETER IB BETS ON

135

in Pentonville, or rather Clerkenwell, close by. But her
station was so humble (like Esmeralda’s) that even the
least exclusive would have drawn the line at her ! She
was one of a large family, and they sold tripe and pigs’
feet, and food for cats and dogs, in a very small shop
opposite the western wall of the Middlesex House of De¬
tention. She was the eldest, and the busy responsible one
at this poor counter. She was one of Nature’s ladies, one
of Nature’s goddesses — a queen ! Of that I felt sure every
time I passed her shop and shyly met her kind, frank, un-
coquettish gaze. A time was approaching when I should
have to overcome my shyness, and tell her that she of all
women was the woman for me, and that it was indispens¬
able, absolutely indispensable, that we two should be made
one — immediately ! at once ! for ever !

But before I could bring myself to this she married
somebody else, and we had never exchanged a single
word !

If she is alive now she is an old woman — a good and
beautiful old woman, I feel sure, wherever she is, and what¬
ever her rank in life. If she should read this book, which
is not very likely, may she accept this small tribute from
an unknown admirer ; for whom, so many years ago, she
beautified and made poetical the hideous street that still
bounds the Middlesex House of Detention on its western
side ; and may she try to think not the less of it because
since then its writer has been on the wrong side of that
long, blank wall, of that dreary portal where the agonised
stone face looks down on the desolate slum—

“ Per me si va tra la perduta gente . . . ! '

‘ 1 PER ME SI VA TRA LA PERDUTA GENTE !

PETER I BEETS ON

137

After this disappointment I got myself a big dog (like
Byron, Bismarck, and Wagner), but not in the spirit of
emulation. Indeed, I had never heard of either Bismarck
or Wagner in those days, or their dogs, and I had lost my
passion for Byron and any wish to emulate him in any
way ; it was simply for the want of something to be fond
of, and that would be sure to love me back again.

He was not a big dog when I bought him, but just a
little ball of orange-tawny fluff that I could carry with one
arm. He cost me all the money I had saved up for a
holiday trip to Passy. I had seen his father, a champion
St. Bernard, at a dog-show, and felt that life would be well
worth living with such a companion ; but hts price was
five hundred guineas. When I saw the irresistible son, just
six weeks old, and heard that he was only one-fiftieth part
of his sire’s value, I felt that Passy must wait, and became
his possessor.

I gave him of the best that money could buy — real
milk at fivepence a quart, three quarts a day. I combed
his fluff every morning, and washed him three times a
week, and killed all his fleas one by one — a labour of love.
I weighed him every Saturday, and found he inci eased
at the rate of from six to nine pounds weekly ; and his
power of affection increased as the square of his weight.
I christened him Porthos, because he was so big and fat
and jolly ; but in his noble puppy face and his beautiful
pathetic eyes I already foresaw for his middle age that
distinguished and melancholy grandeur which characterised
the sublime Athos, Comte de la Fere !

Pie was a joy. It was good to go to sleep at night
and know he would be there in the morning. Whenever
we took our walks abroad, everybody turned round to look

PETER IB BETS ON

138

at him and admire, and to ask if he was good-tempered,
and what his particular breed was, and what I fed him on.
He became a monster in size, a beautiful, playful, grace¬

fully galumphing, and most affectionate monster, and I,
his happy Frankenstein, congratulated myself on the
possession of a treasure that would last twelve years at
least, or even fourteen, with the care I meant to take of him.
But he died of distemper when he was eleven months old.

I do not know if little dogs cause as large griefs when
they die as big ones. But I settled there should be no
more dogs — big or little — for me.

PETER IB BETS ON

139

After this I took to writing verses and sending them
to magazines, where they never appeared. They were
generally about my being reminded, by a tune, of things
that had happened a long time ago : my poetic, like my
artistic vein, was limited.

Here are the last I made, thirty years back. My only
excuse for giving them is that they are so singularly
prophetic !

The reminding tune (an old French chime which my
father used to sing) is very simple and touching ; and the
old French words run thus —

“ Orleans, Beaugency !

Notre Dame de Clery !

Vendome ! Vendome !

Quel chagrin, quel ennui
De compter toute la nuit

Les heures — les heures ! ”

That is all. They are supposed to be sung by a
mediaeval prisoner who cannot sleep ; and who, to beguile
the tediousness of his insomnia, sets any words that come
into his head to the tune of the chime which marks the
hours from a neighbouring belfry. I tried to fancy that
his name was Pasquier de la Mariere, and that he was my
ancestor.

THE CHIME

There is an old French air,

A little song of loneliness and grief —
Simple as nature, sweet beyond compare-
And sad — past all belief!

140

PETER IB BETS ON

Nameless is he that wrote
The melody — but this much I opine :
Whoever made the words was some remote
French ancestor of mine.

I know the dungeon deep
Where long he lay — and why he lay therein ;
And all his anguish, that he could not sleep
For conscience of a sin.

I see his cold hard bed ;

I hear the chime that jingled in his ears
As he pressed nightly, with that wakeful head
A pillow wet with tears.

O restless little chime !

It never changed — but rang its roundelay
For each dark hour of that unhappy time
That sighed itself away.

And ever, more and more,

Its burden grew of his lost self a part —

And mingled with his memories, and wore
Its way into his heart.

And there it wove the name
Of many a town he loved, for one dear sake,
Into its web of music ; thus he came
His little song to make.

Of all that ever heard
And loved it for its sweetness, none but I
Divined the clue that, as a hidden word,

The notes doth underlie.

That wail from lips long dead
Has found its echo in this breast alone !

Only to me, by blood-remembrance led,

Is that wild story known !

PETER IB BETS ON

141

And though ’tis mine, by right
Of treasure-trove, to rifle and lay bare —

A heritage of sorrow and delight

The world would gladly share —

Yet must I not unfold
For evermore, nor whisper late or soon,

The secret that a few slight bars thus hold
Imprisoned in a tune.

For when that little song
Goes ringing in my head, I know that he,

My luckless lone forefather, dust so long,

Relives his life in me !

I sent them to - 's Magazine , with the six French

lines on which they were founded at the top. - T

Magazine published only the six French lines — the only
lines in my handwriting that ever got into print. And
they date from the fifteenth century !

Thus was my little song lost to the world, and for
a time to me. But long, long afterward I found it again,
where Mr. Longfellow once found a song of his : “ in the
heart of a friend ” — surely the sweetest bourne that can
ever be for any song !

Little did I foresee that a day was not far off when
real blood - remembrance would carry me — but that is
to come.

Poetry, friendship, and love having failed, I sought
for consolation in art, and frequented the National Gallery,
Marlborough House (where the Vernon collection was),
the British Museum, the Royal Academy, and other
exhibitions.

I prostrated myself before Titian, Rembrandt, Velas-

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PETER IB BETS ON

quez, Veronese, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Signorelli — the older
the better ; and tried my best to honestly feel the great¬
ness I knew and know to be there ; but for want of
proper training I was unable to reach those heights, and,
like most outsiders, admired them for the wrong things,
for the very beauties they lack — such transcendent, in¬
effable beauties of feature, form, and expression as an
outsider always looks for in an old master, and often
persuades himself he finds there — and oftener still, pretends
he does !

I was far more sincerely moved (although I did not
dare to say so) by some works of our own time — for
instance, by the “Vale of Rest,” the “Autumn Leaves,”
“ The Huguenot,” of young Mr. Millais — just as I found
such poems as Maud and In Memoriam, by Mr. Alfred
Tennyson, infinitely more precious and dear to me than
Milton’s Paradise Lost and Spenser’s Faerie Queene.

Indeed, I was hopelessly modern in those days —
quite an everyday young man ; the names I held in the
warmest and deepest regard were those of then living
men and women. Darwin, Browning, and George Eliot
did not, it is true, exist for me as yet, but Tennyson,
Thackeray, Dickens, Millais, John Leech, George Sand,
Balzac, the old Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de
Musset !

I have never beheld them in the flesh ; but, like all
the world, I know their outer aspect well, and could stand
a pretty stiff examination in most they have ever written,
drawn, or painted.

Other stars of magnitude have risen since ; but of the
old galaxy four at least still shine out of the past with
their ancient lustre undimmed in my eyes — Thackeray ;

PETER IB BETS ON

M3

dear John Leech, who still has power to make me laugh
as I like to laugh ; and for the two others it is plain that
the Queen, the world, and I are of a like mind as to their
deserts, for one of them is now an ornament to the British
peerage, the other a baronet and a millionaire ; only 1
would have made dukes of them straight off, with pre¬
cedence over the Archbishop of Canterbury, if they would
care to have it so.

It is with a full but humble heart that I thus venture
to record my long indebtedness, and pay this poor tribute,
still fresh from the days of my unquestioning hero-worship.
It will serve, at least, to show my reader (should I ever
have one sufficiently interested to care) in what mental
latitudes and longitudes I dwelt, who was destined to such
singular experience — a kind of reference, so to speak —
that he may be able to place me at a glance, according to
the estimation in which he holds these famous and perhaps
deathless names.

It will be admitted, at least, that my tastes were
normal, and shared by a large majority the tastes of an
everyday young man at that particular period of the
nineteenth century — one much given to athletics and
cold tubs, and light reading and cheap tobacco, and
endowed with the usual discontent ; the last person foi
whom or from whom or by whom to expect anything out
of the common.

But the splendour of the Elgin Marbles ! I undei-
stood that at once — perhaps because there is not so
much to understand. Mere physically beautiful people
appeal to us all, whether they be in flesh or marble.

By some strange intuition, or natural instinct, I knew

44

PETER IB BETS ON

that people ought to be built like that, before I had ever
seen a single statue in that wondrous room. I had
divined them — so completely did they realise an aesthetic
ideal I had always felt.

I had often, as I walked the London streets, peopled
an imaginary world of my own with a few hundreds of
such beings, made flesh and blood, and pictured them as
a kind of beneficent aristocracy seven feet high, with
minds and manners to match their physique, and set
above the rest of the world for its good ; for I found it
necessary (so that my dream should have a point) to
provide them with a foil in the shape of millions of such
people as we meet every day. I was egotistic and self-
seeking enough, it is true, to enrol myself among the
former, and had chosen for my particular use and wear
just such a frame as that of the Theseus, with, of course,
the nose and hands and feet (of which time has bereft
him) restored, and all mutilations made good.

And for my mistress and companion I had duly
selected no less a person than the Venus of Milo (no
longer armless), of which Lintot possessed a plaster cast,
and whose beauties I had foreseen before I ever beheld
them with the bodily eye.

“ Monsieur n’est pas degoute ! ” as Ibbetson would
have remarked.

But most of all did I pant for the music which is
divine.

Alas, that concerts and operas and oratorios should
not be as free to the impecunious as the National Gallery
and the British Museum ! — a privilege which is not
abused !

“ Goddess and maiden and queen, be near
me now and befriend.”

MONSIEUR N’EST PAS DEGOUTE !

L

PETER 1 BEETS ON

146

Impecunious as I was, I sometimes had pence enough
to satisfy this craving, and discovered in time such realms
of joy as I had never dreamed of ; such monarchs as
Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven, and others, of whom my
father knew apparently so little ; and yet they were more
potent enchanters than Gretry, Herold, and Boieldieu,
whose music he sang so well.

I discovered, moreover, that they could do more than
charm — they could drive my weary self out of my weary
soul, and for a space fill that weary soul with courage,
resignation, and hope. No Titian, no Shakespeare, no
Phidias could ever accomplish that — not even Mr.
William Makepeace Thackeray or Mr. Alfred Tennyson.

My sweetest recollections of this period of my life
(indeed, the only sweet recollections) are of the music I
heard, and the places where I heaid it; it was enchant¬
ment ! With what vividness I can recall it all ! The
eager anticipation for days ; the careful selection, before¬
hand, from such an embarras de richesses as was duly
advertised ; then the long waiting in the street, at the
doors reserved for those whose portion is to be the gallery.
The hard-won seat aloft is reached at last, after a selfish
but good-humoured struggle up the long stone staircase
(one is sorry for the weak, but a famished ear has no
conscience). The gay and splendid house is crammed ;
the huge chandelier is a golden blaze ; the delight of
expectation is in the air, and also the scent of eas. and
peppermint, and orange-peel ; and music-loving humanity,
whom I have discovered to be of sweeter fragrance than
the common herd.

The orchestra fills, one by one ; instruments tune up
— a familiar cacophony, sweet with seductive promise.

PETER IB BETS ON

14 7

The conductor takes his seat — applause — a hush — three
taps — the baton waves once, twice, thrice — the eternal
fountain of magic is let loose, and at the very first jet

“The cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.”

Then lo ! the curtain rises, and straightway we are
in Seville — Seville, after Pentonville ! Count Almaviva,
lordly, gallant, and gay beneath his disguise, twangs his
guitar, and what sounds issue from it ! For every in¬
strument that was ever invented is in that guitar — the
whole orchestra !

“ Ecco ridente il cielo . . . , ’ so sings he (with the
most beautiful male voice of his time) under Rosina’s
balcony ; and soon Rosina s voice (the most beautiful
female voice of hers) is heard behind her curtains — so
girlish, so innocent, so young and light-hearted, that the
eyes fill with involuntary tears.

Thus encouraged, he warbles that his name is Lindoro,
that he would fain espouse her ; that he is not rich in
the goods of this world, but gifted with an inordinate,
inexhaustible capacity for love (just like Peter Ibbetson) ;
and vows that he will always warble to her, in this wise,
from dawn till when daylight sinks behind the mountain.

But what matter the words ?

“ Go on, my love, go on, like this ! warbles back
Rosina _ and no wonder— till the dull, despondent, com¬

monplace heart of Peter Ibbetson has room for nothing
else but sunny hope and love and joy ! And yet it is
all mere sound — impossible, unnatural, unieal nonsense !

Or else, in a square building, decent and well-lighted

148

PETER IB BETS ON

enough, but not otherwise remarkable — the very chapel
of music — four business-like gentlemen, in modern attire
and spectacles, take their places on an unpretentious
platform amid refined applause ; and soon the still air
vibrates to the trembling of sixteen strings — only that
and nothing more !

But in that is all Beethoven or Schubert or Schu¬
mann has got to say to us for the moment, and what a
say it is ! And with what consummate precision and
perfection it is said — with what a mathematical certainty ;
and yet with what sauvity, dignity, grace, and distinction !

They are the four greatest players in the world, per¬
haps ; but they forget themselves, and we forget them
(as it is their wish we should), in the master whose work
they interpret so reverently, that we may yearn with his
mighty desire and thrill with his rapture and triumph, 01-
ache with his heavenly pain and submit with his divine
resignation.

Not all the words in all the tongues that ever were —
dovetail them, rhyme them, alliterate them, torture them as
you will — can ever pierce to the uttermost depths of the
soul of man, and let in a glimpse of the Infinite, as do the
inarticulate tremblings of those sixteen strings.

Ah, songs without words are the best !

Then a gipsy-like little individual, wiry and unkempt,
who looks as if he had spent his life listening to the
voices of the night in heaven knows what Lithuanian
forests, with wolves and wild-boars for his familiars, and
the wind in the trees for his teacher, seats himself at
the great brass -bound oaken Broadwood pianoforte.
And under his phenomenal fingers, a haunting, tender
world-sorrow, full of questionings — a dark mystery of

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moonless, starlit nature — exhales itself in nocturnes, in
impromptus, in preludes — in mere waltzes and mazourkas
even ! But waltzes and mazourkas such as the most
frivolous would never dream of dancing to. A capricious,
charming sorrow — not too deep for tears, if one be at all
inclined to shed them — so delicate, so fresh, and yet so
distinguished, so ethereally civilised and worldly and well-
bred, that it has crystallised itself into a drawing-room
ecstasy, to last for ever. It seems as though what was
death (or rather euthanasia) to him who felt it, is play
for us- — surely an immortal sorrow whose recital will
never, never pall — the sorrow of Chopin.

Though why Chopin should have been so sorry we
cannot even guess : for mere sorrow’s sake, perhaps ; the
very luxury of woe — the real sorrow which has no real
cause (like mine in those days) ; and that is the best and
cheapest kind of sorrow to make music of, after all !

And this great little gipsy pianist, who plays his
Chopin so well, evidently he has not spent his life in
Lithuanian forests, but hard at the keyboard, night and
day ; and he has had a better master than the wind in
the trees — namely, Chopin himself (for it is printed in
the programme). It was his father and mother before
him, and theirs, who heard the voices of the night ; but
he remembers it all, and puts it all into his master s
music, and makes us remember it too.

Or else behold the chorus, rising tier upon tier, and
culminating in the giant organ. But their thunder is
just hushed.

Some Liliputian figure, male or female as the case
may be, rises on its little legs amid the great Liliputian
throng, and through the sacred stillness there peals forth

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a perfect voice (by no means Liliputian). It bids us
“ Rest in the Lord,” or else it tells that “ He was despised
and rejected of men ” ; but, again, what matter the words ?
They are almost a hindrance, beautiful though they be.

The hardened soul melts at the tones of the singer,
at the unspeakable pathos of the sounds that cannot lie ;
one almost believes — one believes at least in the belief
of others. At last one understands, and is purged of
intolerance and cynical contempt, and would kneel with
the rest, in sheer human sympathy !

O wretched outsider that one is (if it all be true) —
one whose heart, so hopelessly impervious to the written
word, so helplessly callous to the spoken message, can be
reached only by the organised vibrations of a trained
larynx, a metal pipe, a reed, a fiddle-string — by invisible,
impalpable, incomprehensible little air waves in mathe¬
matical combination, that beat against a tiny drum at the
back of one’s ear. And these mathematical combinations
and the laws that govern them have existed for ever, be¬
fore Moses, before Pan, long before either a larynx or a
tympanum had been evolved. They are absolute !

O mystery of mysteries !

Euterpe, Muse of Muses, what a personage hast thou
become since first thou sattest for thy likeness (with that
ridiculous lyre in thy untaught hands) to some Greek who
could carve so much better than thou couldst play !

Four strings ; but not the fingerable strings of Stradi-
varius. Nay, I beg thy pardon — five ; for thy scale was
pentatonic, I believe. Orpheus himself had no better, it
is true. It was with just such an instrument that he all
but charmed his Eurydice out of Hades. But, alas, she
went back ; on second thoughts she liked Hades best !

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5i

Couldst thou fire and madden and wring the heart, and
then melt and console and charm it into the peace that
passeth all understanding, with those poor five rudimentary
notes, and naught between ?

Couldst thou out of those five sounds of fixed unalter¬
able pitch, make, not a sixth sound, but a star ?

What were they, those five sounds ? “ Do, re, mi, fa,

sol ? ” What must thy songs without words have been, if
thou didst ever make any ?

Thou wast in very deed a bread-and-butter miss in
those days, Euterpe, for all that thy eight twin sisters were
already grown up, and out ; and now thou toppest them
all by half a head, at least. “ Tu leur mangerais des petits
pates sur la tete — comme Madame Seraskier ! ”

And oh, how thou beatest them all for beauty ! In
my estimation, at least — like — like Madame Seraskier
again !

And hast thou done growing at last ?

Nay, indeed ; thou art not even yet a bread-and-butter
miss — thou art but a sweet baby, one year old, and seven
feet high, tottering midway between some blessed heaven
thou hast only just left and the dull home of us poor
mortals.

The sweet one-year-old baby of our kin puts its hands
upon our knees and looks up into our eyes with eyes full
of unutterable meaning. It has so much to say ! It can
only say “ ga-ga ” and “ ba-ba ” ; but with oh ! how
searching a voice, how touching a look — that is, if one is
fond of babies ! We are moved to the very core ; we
want to understand, for it concerns us all ; we were once
like that ourselves — the individual and the race — but for
the life of us we cannot remember.

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PETER IBBETSON

And what canst thou say to us yet, Euterpe, but thy
“ ga-ga ” and thy “ ba-ba,” the inarticulate sweetness
whereof we feel and cannot comprehend ? But how
beautiful it is — and what a look thou hast, and what a
voice — that is, if one is fond of music !

“Je suis las des mots — je suis las d’entendre
Ce qui peut mentir ;

J’aime mieux les sons, qu’au lieu de comprendre
Je n’ai qu’k sentir.”

Next day I would buy or beg or borrow the music
that had filled me with such emotion and delight, and take
it home to my little square piano, and try to finger it all
out for myself. But I had begun too late in life.

To sit, longing and helpless, before an instrument one
cannot play, with a lovely score one cannot read ! Even
Tantalus was spared such an ordeal as that.

It seemed hard that my dear father and mother, so
accomplished in music themselves, should not even have
taught me the musical notes, at an age when it was so
easy to learn them ; and thus have made me free of that
wonder-world of sound in which I took such an extraor¬
dinary delight, and might have achieved distinction —
perhaps.

But no, my father had dedicated me to the Goddess of
Science from before my very birth ; that I might some day
be better equipped than he for the pursuit, capture, and
utilisation of nature’s sterner secrets. There must be no
dallying with light Muses. Alas ! I have fallen between
two stools !

And thus, Euterpe absent, her enchantment would
pass, away ; her handwriting was before me, but I had not

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learned how to decipher it, and my weary self would creep
back into its old prison — my soul.

Self-sickness — Selbstschinerz, le vial de soi ! What a
disease ! It is not to be found in any dictionary, medical
or otherwise.

I ought to have been whipped for it, I know ; but no¬
body was big enough, or kind enough, to whip me !

At length there came a day when that weary, weak,
and most ridiculous self of mine was driven out — and
exorcised for good — by a still more potent enchanter than
even Handel or Beethoven or Schubert !

There was a certain Lord Cray, for whom Lintot had
built some labourers’ cottages in Hertfordshire, and I
sometimes went there to superintend the workmen. When
the cottages were finished, Lord Cray and his wife (a very
charming, middle-aged lady) came to see them, and were
much pleased with all that had been done, and also seemed
to be much interested in me, of all people in the world !
and a few days later I received a card of invitation to
their house in town for a concert.

At first I felt much too shy to go ; but Mr. Lintot
insisted that it was my duty to do so, as it might lead to
business ; so that when the night came I screwed up
my courage to the sticking-place, and went.

That evening was all enchantment, or would have been
but for the somewhat painful feeling that I was such an
outsider.

But I was always well content to be the least observed
of all observers, and felt happy in the security that here I
should at least be left alone ; that no perfect stranger
would attempt to put me at my ease by making

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butt of his friendly and familiar banter ; that no gartered
duke or belted earl (I have no doubt they were as plenti¬
ful there as blackberries, though they did not wear their
insignia) would pat me on the back and ask me if I would
sooner look a bigger fool than I was, or be a bigger fool
than I looked. (I have not found a repartee for that in¬
sidious question yet ; that is why it rankles so.)

I had always heard that the English were a stiff people.
There seemed to be no stiffness at Lady Cray’s ; nor was
there any facetiousness ; it put one at one’s ease merely to
look at them. They were mostly big, and strong, and
healthy, and quiet, and good-humoured ; with soft and
pleasantly modulated voices. The large, well-lighted
rooms were neither hot nor cold ; there were beautiful
pictures on the walls, and an exquisite scent of flowers
came from an immense conservatory. I had never been
to such a gathering before ; all was new and a surprise,
and very much to my taste, I confess. It was my first
glimpse of “ Society ” ; and last — but one !

There were crowds of people — but no crowd ; every¬
body seemed to know everybody else quite intimately, and
to resume conversations begun an hour ago somewhere else.

Presently these conversations were hushed, and Grisi
and Mario sang ! It was as much as I could do to re¬
strain my enthusiasm and delight. I could have shouted
out loud. I could almost have sung myself!

In the midst of the applause that followed that
heavenly duet, a lady and gentleman came into the room,
and at the sight of that lady a new interest came into my
life ; and all the old half- forgotten sensations of mute pain
and rapture that the beauty of Madame Seraskier used to
make me feel as a child were revived once more ; but

PARIGI, O CARA.

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with a depth and intensity, in comparison, that were as
a strong man’s barytone to a small boy’s treble.

It was the quick, sharp, cruel blow, the coup depoignard ,
that beauty of the most obvious, yet subtle, consummate,
and highly organised order can deal to a thoroughly pre¬
pared victim.

And what a thoroughly prepared victim was I ! A
poor, shy, over -susceptible, virginal savage — Uncas, the
son of Chingachgook, astray for the first time in a fashion¬
able London drawing-room.

A chaste mediaeval knight, born out of his due time,
ascetic both from reverence and disgust, to whom woman
in the abstract was the one religion ; in the concrete, the
cause of fifty disenchantments a day !

A lusty, love-famished, warm-blooded pagan, stranded
in the middle of the nineteenth century ; in whom some
strange inherited instinct had planted a definite, complete,
and elaborately finished conception of what the ever-
beloved shape of woman should be — from the way the
hair should grow on her brow and her temples and the
nape of her neck, down to the very rhythm that should
regulate the length and curve and position of every single
individual toe ! and who had found, to his pride and de¬
light, that his preconceived ideal was as near to that of
Phidias as if he had lived in the time of Pericles and
Aspasia.

For such was this poor scribe, and such he had been
from a child, until this beautiful lady first swam into his
ken.

She was so tall that her eyes seemed almost on a level
with mine, but she moved with the alert lightness and grace
of a small person. Her thick, heavy hair was of a dark

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coppery brown ; her complexion clear and pale, her eye¬
brows and eyelashes black, her eyes a light bluish-gray.
Her nose was short and sharp and rather tilted at the tip,
and her red mouth large and very mobile ; and here,
deviating from my preconceived ideal, she showed me how
tame a preconceived ideal can be. Her perfect head was
small, and round her long thick throat two slight creases
went parallel, to make what French sculptors call le collier
de Venus ; the skin of her neck was like a white camellia,
and slender and square-shouldered as she was, she did not
show a bone. She was that beautiful type the French
define as la fausse maigre , which does not mean a “ false,
thin woman.”

She seemed both thoughtful and mirthful at once, and
genial as I had never seen any one genial before — a
person to confide in, to tell all one’s troubles to, without
even an introduction ! When she laughed, she showed
both top and bottom teeth, which were perfect, and her
eyes nearly closed, so that they could no longer be seen
for the thick lashes that fringed both upper and under
eyelids ; at which time the expression of her face was so
keenly, cruelly sweet that it went through one like a knife.
And then the laugh would suddenly cease, her full lips
would meet, and her eyes beam out again like two mild
gray suns, benevolently humorous and kindly inquisitive,
and full of interest in everything and everybody around her.
But there — I cannot describe her any more than one can
describe a beautiful tune.

Out of those magnificent orbs kindness, kindness, kind¬
ness was shed like a balm ; and after a while, by chance, that
balm was shed for a few moments on me, to my sweet but
terrible confusion. Then I saw that she asked my hostess

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who I was, and received the answer ; on which she shed
her balm on me for one moment more, and dismissed me
from her thoughts.

Madame Grisi sang again — Desdemona’s song from
Otello — and the beautiful lady thanked the divine singer,
whom she seemed to know quite intimately ; and I
thought her thanks — Italian thanks — even diviner than
the song — not that I could quite understand them or even
hear them well — I was too far ; but she thanked with
eyes and hands and shoulders — slight, happy movements
— -as well as words; surely the sweetest and sincerest
words ever spoken.

She was much surrounded and made up to — evidently
a person of great importance ; and I ventured to ask
another shy man standing in my corner who she was, and
he answered—

“ The Duchess of Towers.”

She did not stay long, and when she departed all
turned dull and commonplace that had seemed so bright
before she came ; and seeing that it was not necessary to
bid my hostess good-night and thank her for a pleasant
evening, as we did in Pentonville, I got myself out of
the house and walked back to my lodgings an altered
man.

I should probably never meet that lovely young
duchess again, and certainly never know her ; but her
shaft had gone straight and true into my very heart, and
I felt how well barbed it was, beyond all possibility of its
ever being torn out of that blessed wound ; might this
never heal ; might it bleed on for ever !

She would be an ideal in my lonely life, to live up to
in thought and word and deed. An instinct which I

PETER IBBETSON

<59

felt to be infallible told me she was as good as she was
fair —

“ Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,

The love of love.”

THE DUCHESS OF TOWERS.

And just as

Madame Seraskier’s image was fading

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PETER IBBETSON

away, this new star had arisen to guide me by its light,
though seen but for a moment; breaking once, through a
parted cloud, I knew in which portion of the heavens it
dwelt and shone apart, among the fairest constellations ;
and ever after turned my face that way. Nevermore in
my life would I do or say or think a mean thing, or an
impure, or an unkind one, if I could help it.

Next day, as we walked to the Foundling Hospital for
divine service, Mrs. Lintot severely deigned — under protest,
as it were — to cross-examine me on the adventures of the
evening.

I did not mention the Duchess of Towers, nor was I
able to describe the different ladies’ dresses ; but I de¬
scribed everything else in a manner I thought calculated
to interest her deeply — the flowers, the splendid pictures
and curtains and cabinets, the beautiful music, the many
lords and ladies gay.

She disapproved of them all.

“ Existence on such an opulent scale was unconducive
to any qualities of real sterling value, either moral or
intellectual. Give her , for one, plain living and high
thinking ! ”

“ By the way,” she asked, “ what kind of supper did
they give you ? Something extremely recherche, I have
no doubt. Ortolans, nightingales’ tongues, pearls dissolved
in wine ? ”

Candour obliged me to confess there had been no
supper, or that if there had I had managed to miss it. I
suggested that perhaps everybody had dined late ; and all
the pearls, I told her, were on the ladies’ necks and in
their hair ; and not feeling hungry, I could not wish

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them anywhere else ; and the nightingales’ tongues were
in their throats to sing heavenly Italian duets with.

“ And they call that hospitality ! ” exclaimed Lintot,
who loved his supper ; and then, as he was fond of
summing up and laying down the law when once his wife
had given him the lead, he did so to the effect that
though the great were all very well in their superficial way,
and might possess many external charms for each other,
and for all who were so deplorably weak as to fall within
the sphere of their attraction, there was a gulf between
the likes of them and the likes of us, which it would be
better not to try and bridge if one wished to preserve one’s
independence and one’s self-respect ; unless, of course, it
led to business ; and this, he feared, it would never do
with me.

“ They take you up one day and they drop you like
a ’ot potato the next ; and, moreover, my dear Peter,” he
concluded, affectionately linking his arm in mine, as was
often his way when we walked together (although he was
twelve good inches shorter than myself), “inequality of
social condition is a bar to any real intimacy. It is
something like disparity of physical stature. One can
walk arm in arm only with a man of about one’s own
size.”

This summing-up seemed so judicious, so incontro¬
vertible, that feeling quite deplorably weak enough to fall
within the sphere of Lady Cray’s attraction if I saw much
of her, and thereby losing my self-respect, I was deplorably
weak enough not to leave a card on her after the happy
evening I had spent at her house.

Snob that I was, I dropped her — like a ’ot potato ” —
for fear of her dropping me.

M

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Besides which I had on my conscience a guilty, snobby
feeling that in merely external charms at least these fine
people were more to my taste than the charmed circle of
my kind old friends the Lintots, however inferior they
might be to these (for all that I knew) in sterling qualities
of the heart and head — just as I found the outer aspect of
Park Lane and Piccadilly more attractive than that of
Pentonville, though possibly the latter may have been the
more wholesome for such as I to live in.

But people who can get Mario and Grisi to come
and sing for them (and the Duchess of Towers to come
and listen) ; people whose walls are covered with beautiful
pictures ; people for whom the smooth and harmonious
ordering of all the little external things of social life has
become a habit and a profession — such people are not to
be dropped without a pang.

So with a pang I went back to my usual round as
though nothing had happened ; but night and day the
face of the Duchess of Towers was ever present to me,
like a fixed idea that dominates a life.

On reading and re-reading these past pages I find
that I have been unpardonably egotistic, unconscionably
prolix and diffuse ; and with such small beer to chronicle !

And yet I feel that if I strike out this, I must also
strike out that ; which would lead to my striking out all,
in sheer discouragement ; and I have a tale to tell which
is more than worth the telling !

Once having got into the way of it, I suppose, I
must have found the temptation to talk about myself
irresistible.

It is evidently a habit easy to acquire, even in old

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age — perhaps especially in old age, for it has never been
my habit through life. I would sooner have talked to
you about yourself, reader, or about you to somebody else
— your friend, or even your enemy ; or about them to
you.

But, indeed, at present, and until I die, I am without
a soul to talk to about anybody or anything worth
speaking of, so that most of my talking is done in pen
and ink — a one-sided conversation, O patient reader, with
yourself. I am the most lonely old man in the world,
although perhaps the happiest.

Still, it is not always amusing where I live, cheerfully
awaiting my translation to another sphere.

There is the good chaplain, it is true, and the good
priest ; who talk to me about myself a little too much,
methinks ; and the doctor, who talks to me about the
priest and the chaplain, which is better. He does not
seem to like them. He is a very witty man.

But, my brother maniacs !

They are lamentably comine tout le vionde, after all.
They are only interesting when the mad fit seizes them.
When free from their awful complaint they are for the
most part very common mortals : conventional Philistines,
dull dogs like myself, and dull dogs do not like each
other.

Two of the most sensible (one a forger, the other a
kleptomaniac on an important scale) are friends of mine.
They are fairly well educated, respectable city men, clean,
solemn, stodgy, punctilious, and resigned, but they are
both unhappy ; not because they are cursed with the
double brand of madness and crime, and have forfeited
their freedom in consequence ; but because they find

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there are so few “ ladies and gentlemen ” in a criminal
lunatic asylum, and they have always been used to “ the
society of ladies and gentlemen.” Were it not for this,
they would be well content to live here. And each is in
the habit of confiding to me that he considers the other
a very high-minded, trustworthy fellow, and all that, but
not altogether “ quite a gentleman.” I do not know
what they consider me ; they probably confide that to
each other.

Can anything be less odd, less eccentric or inter¬
esting ?

Another, when quite sane, speaks English with a
French accent and demonstrative French gestures, and
laments the lost glories of the old French regime, and
affects to forget the simplest English words. He does
not know a word of French, however. But when his
madness comes on, and he is put into a strait-waistcoat,
all his English comes back, and very strong, fluent, idio¬
matic English it is, of the cockneyest kind, with all its
“ h’s ” duly transposed.

Another (the most unpleasant and ugliest person
here) has chosen me for the confidant of his past amours ;
he gives me the names and dates and all. The less I
listen the more he confides. He makes me sick. What
can I do to prevent his believing that I believe him ? I
am tired of killing people for lying about women. If I
call him a liar and a cad, it may wake in him heaven
knows what dormant frenzy — for I am quite in the dark
as to the nature of his mental infirmity.

Another, a weak but amiable and well-intentioned
youth, tries to think that he is passionately fond of
music ; but he is so exclusive, if you please, that he can

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165

only endure Bach and Beethoven, and when he hears
Mendelssohn or Chopin, is obliged to leave the room.
If I want to please him I whistle “ Le Bon Roi Dagobert,”
and tell him it is the motif of one of Bach’s fugues ; and
to get rid of him I whistle it again and tell him it is one
of Chopin’s impromptus. What his madness is I can
never be quite sure, for he is very close, but have heard
that he is fond of roasting cats alive ; and that the mere
sight of a cat is enough to rouse his terrible propensity,
and drive all wholesome, innocent, harmless, natural affecta¬
tion out of his head.

There is a painter here who (like others one has met
outside) believes himself the one living painter worthy of
the name. Indeed, he has forgotten the names of all the
others, and can only despise and abuse them in the lump.
He triumphantly shows you his own work, which consists
of just the kind of crude, half-clever, irresponsible, im¬
pressionist daubs you would expect from an amateur who
talks in that way ; and you wonder why on earth he
should be in a lunatic asylum, of all places in the world.
And (just as would happen outside, again) some of his
fellow-sufferers take him at his own valuation and believe
him a great genius ; some of them want to kick him for
an impudent impostor (but that he is so small) ; and the
majority do not care.

His mania is arson, poor fellow ! and when the
terrible wish comes over him to set the place on fire, he
forgets his artistic conceit, and his mean, weak, silly face
becomes almost grand.

And with the female inmates it is just the same.
There is a lady who has spent twenty years of her life
here. Her father was a small country doctor, called

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Snogget ; her husband an obscure, hard-working curate ;
and she is absolutely normal, commonplace, and even
vulgar. For her hobby is to discourse of well-born and
titled people and county families, with whom (and with
no others) it has always been her hope and desire to
mix ; and is still, though her hair is nearly white, and
she is still here. She thinks and talks and cares about
nothing else but “ smart people,” and has conceived a
very warm regard for me, on account of Lieutenant-
Colonel Ibbetson, of Ibbetson Hall, Hopshire ; not
because I killed him and was sentenced to be hanged
for it, or because he was a greater criminal than I (all
of which is interesting enough) ; but because he was my
relative, and that through him I must be distantly con¬
nected, she thinks, with the Ibbetsons of Lechmere —
whoever they may be, and whom neither she nor I have
ever met (indeed, I had never heard of them), but whose
family history she knows almost by heart. What can be
tamer, duller, more prosaic, more sordidly humdrum,
more hopelessly sane, more characteristic of common,
under-bred, provincial feminine cackle ?

And yet this woman, in a fit of conjugal jealousy,
murdered her own children ; and her father went mad
in consequence, and her husband cut his throat.

In fact, during their lucid intervals it would never
enter one’s mind that they were mad at all, they are so
absolutely like the people one meets every day in the
world — such narrow-minded idiots, such deadly bores !
One might as well be back in Pentonville or Hopshire
again, or live in passionate Brompton (as I am told it is
called) ; or even in Belgravia, for that matter !

For we have a young lord and a middle-aged baronet

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— a shocking pair, who should not be allowed to live ; but
for family influence they would be doing their twenty
years’ penal servitude in jail, instead of living comfortably
sequestered here. Like Ouida’s high-born heroes, they
“ stick to their order,” and do not mingle with the rest of
us. They ignore us so completely that we cannot help
looking up to them in spite of their vices — just as we
should do outside.

And we, of the middle class, we stick to our order too,
and do not mingle with the small shopkeepers — who do
not mingle with the labourers, artisans, and mechanics —
who (alas for them !) have nobody to look down upon
but each other — but they do not ; and are the best-bred
people in the place.

Such are we ! It is only when our madness is upon
us that we cease to be commonplace, and wax tragical
and great, or else original and grotesque and humorous,
with that true deep humour that compels both our
laughter and our tears, and leaves us older, sadder, and
wiser than it found us.

“ Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.’

(So much, if little more, can I recall of the benign
Virgil.)

And now to my small beer again, which will have
more of a head to it henceforward.

Thus did I pursue my solitary way, like Bryant’s
Waterfowl, only with a less definite purpose before me

_ till at last there dawned for me an ever- memorable

Saturday in June.

I had again saved up enough money to cariy mj

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long-longed-for journey to Paris into execution. The
Seine's boiler got up its steam, the Seine's white awning
was put up for me as well as others ; and on

a beautiful cloudless

English morning I

Vi rawiso

O luoghi ameni !

TO THE ELYSIAN FIELDS ONCE MORE.

stood by the man at the wheel, and saw St. Paul’s and
London Bridge and the Tower fade out of sight; with
what hope and joy I cannot describe. I almost forgot
that I was me !

And next morning (a beautiful French morning) how

PETER IBBETSON

169

I exulted as I went up the Champs Elysees and passed
under the familiar Arc de Triomphe on my way to the
Rue de la Pompe, Passy, and heard all around the familiar
tongue that I still knew so well, and rebreathed the long-
lost and half- forgotten, but now keenly remembered,
fragrance of th o. genius loci', that vague, light, indescribable,
almost imperceptible scent of a place, that is so heavily
laden with the past for those who have lived there long
ago — the most subtly intoxicating ether that can be !

When I came to the meeting of the Rue de la Tour
and the Rue de la Pompe, and, looking in at the grocer’s
shop at the corner, I recognised the handsome mustachioed
groceress, Madame Liard (whose mustache twelve pros¬
perous years had turned gray), I was almost faint with
emotion. Had any youth been ever so moved by that
face before ?

There, behind the window (which was now of plate-
glass), and amongst splendid Napoleonic wares of a later
day, were the same old India - rubber balls in coloured
network ; the same quivering lumps of fresh paste in
brown paper, that looked so cool and tempting ; the same
three-sou boxes of water-colours (now marked seventy-five
centimes), of which I had consumed so many in the
service of Mimsey Seraskier ! I went in and bought one,
and resmelt with delight the smell of all my bygone
dealings there, and received her familiar-sounding —

“ Merci, monsieur! faudrait-il autre chose?” as if
it had been a blessing ; but I was too shy to throw
myself into her arms and tell her that I was the “ lone,
wandering, but not lost” Gogo Pasquier. She might
have said —

“ Eh bien, et apres ? ”

170

PETER IB BETS ON

The day had begun well.

Like an epicure, I deliberated whether I should walk
to the old gate in the Rue de la Pompe, and up the
avenue and back to our old garden, or make my way
round to the gap in the park hedge that we had worn of
old by our frequent passages in and out, to and from the
Bois de Boulogne.

I chose the latter as, on the whole, the more promising
in exquisite gradations of delight.

The gap in the park hedge, indeed ! The park hedge
had disappeared, the very park itself was gone, cut up,
demolished, all parcelled out into small gardens, with trim
white villas, except where a railway ran through a deep
cutting in the chalk. A train actually roared and panted
by, and choked me with its filthy steam as I looked
round in stupefaction on the ruins of my long-cherished
hope.

If that train had run over me and I had survived it,
it could not have given me a greater shock ; it all seemed
too cruel and brutal an outrage.

A winding carriage road had been pierced through
the very heart of the wilderness ; and on this, neatly
paled little brand - new gardens abutted, and in these
I would recognise, here and there, an old friend in the
shape of some well -remembered tree that I had often
climbed as a boy, and which had been left standing
out of so many, but so changed by the loss of its old
surroundings that it had a tame, caged, transplanted look
— almost apologetic, and as if ashamed of being found
out at last !

Nothing else remained. Little hills and cliffs and
valleys and chalk pits that had once seemed big had been

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171

levelled up, or away, and I lost my bearings altogether,
and felt a strange, creeping chill of blankness and be¬
reavement.

But how about the avenue and my old home ? I
hastened back to the Rue de la Pompe with the quick
step of aroused anxiety. The avenue was gone— blocked
within a dozen yards of the gate by a huge brick building
covered with newly-painted trellis-work ! My old house
was no more, but in its place a much larger and smarter
edifice of sculptured stone. The old gate at least had
not disappeared, nor the porter’s lodge ; and I feasted
my sorrowful eyes on these poor remains, that looked
snubbed and shabby and out of place in the midst of all
this new splendour.

Presently a smart concierge, with a beautiful pink¬
ribboned cap, came out and stared at me for a while, and
inquired if monsieur desired anything.

I could not speak.

“ Est-ce que monsieur est indispose ? Cette chaleur !
Monsieur ne parle pas le Frangais, peut-etre ? ”

When I found my tongue I explained to her that I
had once lived there in a modest house overlooking the
street, but which had been replaced by this much more
palatial abode.

“ O, oui, monsieur — on a balaye tout ca ! ” she replied.

“ Balaye ! ” What an expression for me to hear !

And she explained how the changes had taken place,
and how valuable the property had become. She showed
me a small plot of garden, a fragment of my old garden,
that still remained, and where the old apple-tree might
still have been, but that it had been sawed away. I saw
the stump, that did duty for a rustic table.

PETER IB BETS ON

172

Presently, looking over a new wall, I saw another
small garden, and in it the ruins of the old shed where
I had found the toy wheelbarrow — -soon to disappear, as
they were building there too.

THE OLD APPLE-TREE.

I asked after all the people I could think of, beginning
with those of least interest — the butcher, the baker, the
candlestick-maker.

Some were dead ; some had retired and had left their
“ commerce ” to their children and children-in-law. Three
different schoolmasters had kept the school since I had
left. Thank Heaven, there was still the school — much
altered, it is true. I had forgotten to look for it.

PETER IB BETS ON

173

She had no remembrance of my name, or the
Seraskiers’ • — -I asked with a beating heart. We had
left no trace. Twelve short years had effaced all memory
of us ! But she told me that a gentleman, decore, mats
tombe en enfance , lived at a niaison de smite' in the Chaussee

M. LE MAJOR

de la Muette, close by, and that his name was le Major
Duquesnois ; and thither I went, after rewarding and
warmly thanking her.

I inquired for le Major Duquesnois, and was told he
was out for a walk, and I soon found him, much aged and
bent, and leaning on the arm of a Sister of Charity. I

174

PETER IB BETS ON

was so touched that I had to pass him two or three times
before I could speak. He was so small — so pathetically
small !

It was a long time before I could give him an idea of
who I was — Gogo Pasquier !

Then after a while he seemed to recall the past a
little.

“ Ha, ha ! Gogo — gentil petit Gogo! — oui — oui —
l’exercice ? Portez . . . arrrmes ! arrmes . . . bras !
Et Mimse ! bonne petite Mimse ! toujours mal a la
tete ! ”

He could just remember Madame Seraskier ; and
repeated her name several times, and said, “ Ah ! elle
etait bien belle, Madame Seraskier ! ”

In the old days of fairy-tale-telling, when he used
to get tired and I still wanted him to go on, he had
arranged that if, in the course of the story, he suddenly
brought in the word “ Cric,” and I failed to immediately
answer “ Crac,” the story would be put off till our next
walk (to be continued in our next !), and he was so
ingenious in the way he brought in the terrible word that
I often fell into the trap, and had to forgo my delight for
that afternoon.

I suddenly thought of saying “ Cric ! ” and he
immediately said “ Crac ! ” and laughed in a touching,
senile way — “ Cric ! — crac ! c’est bien ca ! ” and then he
became quite serious and said —

“ Et la suite au prochain numero ! ”

After this he began to cough, and the good Sister
said —

“ Je crains que monsieur ne le fatigue un peu ! ”

So I had to bid him good - bye ; and after I had

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175

squeezed and kissed his hand, he made me a most courtly
bow, as though I had been a complete stranger.

I rushed away, tossing up my arms like a madman
in my pity and sorrow for my dear old friend, and my
general regret and disenchantment. I made for the
Bois de Boulogne, there to find, instead of the old

GREEN AND GOLD

rabbit- and -roebuck -haunted thickets and ferneries and
impenetrable undergrowth, a huge artificial lake, with
row - boats and skiffs, and a rockery that would have
held its own in Rosherville gardens. And on the way
thither, near the iron gates in the fortifications, whom
should I meet but one of my old friends the couriers
on his way from St. Cloud to the Tuileries? There he
rode with his arms jogging up and down, and his low
glazed hat, and his immense jack - boots, just the same

176

PETER IB BETS ON

as ever, never rising in his stirrups, as his horse trotted to
the jingle of the sweet little chime round its neck.

Alas ! his coat was no longer the innocent unsophisti¬
cated blue and silver livery of the bourgeois king, but the
hateful green and gold of another regime.

Farther on the Mare d’Auteuil itself had suffered
change and become respectable — imperially respectable.
No more frogs or newts or water-beetles, I felt sure ; but
gold and silver fish in vulgar Napoleonic profusion.

No words that I can find would give any idea of the
sadness and longing that filled me as I trod once more
that sunlit grassy brink — the goal of my fond ambition
for twelve long years.

It was Sunday, and many people were about— many
children, in their best Sunday clothes and on their best
behaviour, discreetly throwing crumbs to the fish. A new
generation, much quieter and better dressed than my
cousins and I, who had once so filled the solitude with the
splashing of our nets, and the excited din of our English
voices.

As I sat down on a bench by the old willow (where
the rat lived), and gazed and gazed, it almost surprised
me that the very intensity of my desire did not of itself
suffice to call up the old familiar faces and forms, and con¬
jure away these modern intruders. The power to do this
seemed almost within my reach ; I willed and willed and
willed with all my might, but in vain ; I could not cheat
my sight or hearing for a moment. There they remained,
unconscious and undisturbed, those happy, well-mannered,
well-appointed little French people, and fed the gold and
silver fish ; and there, with an aching heart, I left them.

Oh, surely, surely, I cried to myself, we ought to find

PETER IB BETS ON

77

some means of possessing the past more fully and com¬
pletely than we do. Life is not worth living for many of
us if a want so desperate and yet so natural can never be
satisfied. Memory is but a poor, rudimentary thing that
we had better be without, if it can only lead us to the
verge of consummation like this, and madden us with a
desire it cannot slake. The touch of a vanished hand,
the sound of a voice that is still, the tender grace of a
day that is dead, should be ours for ever, at our beck and
call, and by some exquisite and quite conceivable illusion
of the senses.

Alas ! alas ! I have hardly the hope of ever meeting
my beloved ones again in another life. Oh to meet their
too dimly remembered forms in tins, just as they once
were, by some trick of my own brain ! To see them with
the eye, and hear them with the ear, and tread with them
the old obliterated ways as in a waking dream ! It would
be well worth going mad to become such a self-conjurer
as that.

Thus musing sadly, I reached St. Cloud, and that , at
least, and the Boulogne that led to it, had not been very
perceptibly altered, and looked as if I had only left them
a week ago. The sweet aspect from the bridge, on either
side and beyond, filled me with the old enchantment.
There, at least, the glory had not departed.

I hastened through the gilded gates and up the broad
walk to the grand cascade. There, among the . lovely
wreathed urns and jars of geranium, still sat or reclined or
gesticulated the old unalterable gods ; there squatted the
grimly genial monsters in granite and marble and bronze,
still spouting their endless gallons for the delectation of
hot Parisian eyes. Unchanged, and to all appearance un-

N

173

PETER IB BETS ON

changeable (save that they were not nearly so big as I
had imagined), their cold, smooth, ironical patience shamed
and braced me into better cheer. Beautiful, hideous, what¬
ever you please, they seemed to revel in the very sense of
their insensibility, of their eternal stability — their stony
scorn of time and wind and weather, and the peevish, weak-
kneed, short-lived discontent of man. It was good to
fondly pat them on the back once more — when one could
reach them — and cling to them for a little while, after all
the dust and drift and ruin I had been tramping through
all day !

Indeed, they woke in me a healthy craving for all-but-
forgotten earthly joys — even for wretched meat and drink
— so I went and ordered a sumptuous repast at the Tete
Noire — a brand-new Tete Noire, alas ! quite white, all in
stone and stucco, and without a history !

It was a beautiful sunset. Waiting for my dinner, I
gazed out of the first-floor window, and found balm for my
disappointed and regretful spirit in all that democratic
joyousness of French Sunday life. I had seen it over and
over again just like that in the old days ; this, at least,
was like coming back home to something I had known
and loved.

The cafes on the little “ Place ” between the bridge and
the park were full to overflowing. People chatting over
their consommations sat right out, almost into the middle
of the square, so thickly packed that there was scarcely
room for the busy, lively white-aproned waiters to move
between them. The air was full of the scent of trodden
grass and macaroons and French tobacco, blown from
the park ; of gay French laughter and the music of
mirlitons ; of a light dusty haze, shot with purple and gold

PETER IB BETS ON

179

by the setting sun. T he river, alive with boats and canoes,
repeated the glory of the sky, and the well-remembered,
thickly wooded hill rose before me, culminating in the
Lanterne de Diogene.

I could have threaded all that maze of trees blind¬
folded.

Two Roman pifferari came on to the Place and began
to play an extraordinary and most exciting melody that
almost drew me out of the window ; it seemed to have no
particular form, no beginning or middle or end ; it went
soaring higher and higher, like the song of a lark, with
never a pause for breath, to the time of a maddening jig
— a tarantella, perhaps — always on the strain and stress,
always getting nearer and nearer to some shrill climax
of ecstasy quite high up and away, beyond the scope of
earthly music ; while the persistent drone kept buzzing of
the earth and the impossibility to escape. All so gay, so
sad, there is no name for it !

Two little deformed and discarded- looking dwarfs,
beggars, brother and sister, with large toothless gaps for
mouths and no upper lip, began to dance ; and the crowd
laughed and applauded. Higher and higher, nearer and
nearer to the impossible, rose the quick, piercing notes of
the piffero. Heaven seemed almost within reach — the
nirvana of music after its quick madness — the region of
the ultra-treble that lies beyond the ken of ordinary
human ears !

A carriage and four, with postilions and “ guides,”
came clattering royally down the road from the palace, and
dispersed the crowd as it bowled on its way to the bridge.
In it were two ladies and two gentlemen. One of the
ladies was the young Empress of the French ; the other

A glance that pierced me like a sudden

I

SUMMER LIGHTNING.

PETER IB BETS ON

1 8 1

looked up at my window — for a moment, as in a soft flash
of summer lightning, her face seemed ablaze with friendly
recognition — with a sweet glance of kindness and interest
and surprise — a glance that pierced me like a sudden shaft
of light from heaven.

It was the Duchess of Towers !

1 felt as though the bagpipes had been leading up to
this! In a moment more the carriage was out of sight,
the sun had quite gone down, the pifferari had ceased
to play and were walking round with the hat, and all was
over.

I dined, and made my way back to Paris on foot
through the Bois de Boulogne, and by the Mare d Auteuil,
and saw my old friend the water-rat swim across it, trailing
the gleam of his wake after him, like a silver comet s tail !

“ Allons-nous-en, gens de la noce !

Allons-nous-en chacun chez nous ! ”

So sang a festive wedding-party as it went merrily arm in
arm through the long High Street of Passy, with a gleeful
trust that would have filled the heart with envy but for
sad experience of the vanity of human wishes.

Chacun chez nous ! How charming it sounds !

Was each so sure that when he reached his home
he would find his heart’s desire? Was the bridegroom
himself so very sure ?

The heart’s desire — the heart’s regret! I flattered
myself that I had pretty well sounded the uttermost
depths of both on that eventful Sunday !

THE OLD WATER-RAT.

}£art jfottrtlj

Michodiere.

Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still
jingling in my ears, and that haunting, beloved face, with

184

PETER IB BETS ON

its ineffable smile, still printed on the retina of my closed
eyes, I fell asleep.

And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of
my real inner life began !

All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated
and jumbled together after the usual manner of dreams,
wove themselves into a kind of nightmare and oppression.
I was on my way to my old abode ; everything that I
met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now
the strange, vague charm of association and reminiscence,
now the distressing sense of change and loss and deso¬
lation.

As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the
school on my left there was a prison ; and at the door a
little thick-set jailer, three feet high, and much deformed,
and a little deformed jaileress no bigger than himself, were
cunningly watching me out of the corners of their eyes,
and toothlessly smiling. Presently they began to waltz
together to an old familiar tune, with their enormous keys
dangling at their sides ; and they looked so funny that I
laughed and applauded. But soon I perceived that their
crooked faces were not really funny ; indeed, they were
fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious
that these deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me
and the avenue gate for which I was bound — to cut me
off, that they might run me into the prison, where it was
their custom to hang people of a Monday morning.

In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue
gate, and there stood the Duchess of Towers, with mild
surprise in her eyes and a kind smile — a heavenly vision
of strength and reality.

“You are not dreaming true ! ” she said.

“ Don’t be

PETER IBBETSON

185

afraid — those little people don’t exist! Give me your
hand and come in here.”

And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and
they vanished ; and I felt that this was no longer a dieam,
but something else — some strange thing that had happened
to me, some new life that I had woke up to.

For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, my
sense of being I, myself, which hitherto in my dream (as
in all previous dreams up to then) had been only paitial,
intermittent, and vague, suddenly blazed into full, con¬
sistent, practical activity — just as it is in life, when one is
well awake and much interested in what is going on-
only with perceptions far keener and more alert.

I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and
remembered all the events of the previous day. I was
conscious that my real body, undressed and in bed, now
lay fast asleep in a small room on the fourth floor of an
hotel garni in the Rue de la Michodiere. I knew this
perfectly ; and yet here was my body too, just as sub¬
stantial, with all my clothes on ; my boots rather dusty,
my shirt collar damp with the heat, for it was hot. With
my disengaged hand I felt in my trousers pocket ; there
were my London latch-key, my purse, my penknife \ my
handkerchief in the breast-pocket of my coat, and m its
tail-pockets my gloves and pipe-case, and the little water¬
colour box I had bought that morning. I looked at my
watch ; it was going, and marked eleven. I pinched
myself, I coughed, I did all one usually does under the
pressure of some immense surprise, to assure myself that
I was awake ; and I was , and yet here I stood, actually
hand in hand with a great lady to whom I had never
been introduced (and who seemed much tickled at my

PETER IB BETS ON

1 86

confusion) ; and staring now at her, now at my old
school.

The prison had tumbled down like a house of cards,
and lo ! in its place was M. Saindou’s maison d’ education,
just as it had been of old. I even recognised on the
yellow wall the stamp of a hand in dry mud, made fifteen
years ago by a day boy called Parisot, who had fallen
down in the gutter close by, and thus left his mark on
getting up again ; and it had remained there for months,
till it had been whitewashed away in the holidays. Here
it was anew, after fifteen years.

The swallows were flying and twittering. A yellow
omnibus was drawn up to the gates of the school ; the
horses stamped and neighed and bit each other, as French
horses always did in those days. The driver swore at
them perfunctorily.

A crowd was looking on — le Pere et la Mere Francois,
Madame Liard, the grocer’s wife, and other people, whom
I remembered at once with delight. Just in front of us a
small boy and girl were looking on, like the rest, and I
recognised the back and the cropped head and thin legs
of Mimsey Seraskier.

A barrel organ was playing a pretty tune I knew
quite well, and had forgotten.

The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud and
full of self-importance (as he always was), and half a dozen
boys whose faces and names were quite familiar to me, in
smart white trousers and shining boots, and silken white
bands round their left arms, got into the omnibus, and
were driven away in a glorified manner — as it seemed — to
heaven in a golden chariot. It was beautiful to see and
hear.

PREMIERE COMMUNION.

1 88

PETER IB BETS ON

I was still holding the duchess’s hand, and felt the
warmth of it through her glove ; it stole up my arm like
a magnetic current. I was in Elysium ; a heavenly sense
had come over me that at last my periphery had been
victoriously invaded by a spirit other than mine- — a most
powerful and beneficent spirit. There was a blessed fault
in my impenetrable armour of self, after all, and the genius
of strength and charity and loving-kindness had found it
out.

“ Now you’re dreaming true,” she said. “ Where are
those boys going ? ”

“To church, to make their premiere communion',' I
replied.

“ That’s right. You’re dreaming true because I’ve got
you by the hand. Do you know that tune?”

I listened, and the words belonging to it came out of
the past and I said them to her, and she laughed again,
with her eyes screwed up deliciously.

“ Quite right — quite,” she exclaimed. “ How odd
that you should know them ! How well you pronounce
French for an Englishman ! For you are Mr. Ibbetson,
Lady Cray’s architect ? ”

I assented, and she let go my hand.

The street was full of people — familiar forms and faces
and voices, chatting together and looking down the road
after the yellow omnibus ; old attitudes, old tricks of gait
and manner, old forgotten French ways of speech — all as
it was long ago. Nobody noticed us, and we walked up
the now deserted avenue.

The happiness, the enchantment of it all ! Could it
be that I was dead, that I had died suddenly in my sleep,
at the hotel in the Rue de la Michodiere ? Could it be

PETER IBBETSON

189

that the Duchess of Towers was dead too — had been
killed by some accident on her way from St. Cloud to
Paris ? and that, both having died so near each other in
time and space, we had begun our eternal after-life in this
heavenly fashion ?

That was too good to be true, I reflected ; some
instinct told me that this was not death, but transcendent
earthly life — and also, alas ! that it would not endure for
ever !

I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face,
every movement of her body, every detail of her dress —
more so than I could have been in actual life — and said
to myself, “ Whatever this is, it is no dream.” But I felt
there was about me the unspeakable elation which can
come to us only in our waking moments when we are at
our very best ; and then only feebly, in comparison with
this, and to many of us never. It never had to me, since
that morning when I had found the little wheelbarrow.

I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself
had a slight touch of the dream in it. It was no longer
quite right, and was getting out of drawing and per¬
spective, so to speak. I had lost my stay — the touch of
her hand.

“ Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson ? ”

“ I am afraid not quite,” I replied.

“ You must try by yourself a little — try hard. Look
at this house ; what is written on the portico? ”

I saw written in gold letters the words, “Tete Noire,”
and said so.

She rippled with laughter, and said, “No; try again ; ”
and just touched me with the tip of her finger for a
moment.

PETER IB BETS ON

190

I tried again, and said, “ Parvis Notre Dame.”

“ That’s rather better,” she said, and touched me again ;
and I read, “ Parva sed Apta,” as I had so often read there
before in old days.

“ And now look at that old house over there,” pointing
to my old home ; “ how many windows are there in the
top story ? ”

I said seven.

“ No ; there are five. Look again ! ” and there were
five ; and the whole house was exactly, down to its
minutest detail, as it had been once upon a time. I
could see Therese through one of the windows, making my
bed.

“ That’s better,” said the duchess ; “ you will soon do
it — it’s very easy — ce n'est que le premier pas ! My father
taught me ; you must always sleep on your back with
your arms above your head, your hands clasped under it
and your feet crossed, the right one over the left, unless
you are left-handed ; and you must never for a moment
cease thinking of where you want to be in your dream till
you are asleep and get there ; and you must never forget
in your dream where and what you were when awake.
You must join the dream on to reality. Don’t forget.
And now I will say good-bye ; but before I go give me
both your hands and look round everywhere as far as your
eye can see.”

It was hard to look away from her ; her face drew my
eyes, and through them all my heart ; but I did as she
told me, and took in the whole familiar scene, even to the
distant woods of Ville d’Avray, a glimpse of which was
visible through an opening in the trees ; even to the
smoke of a train making its way to Versailles, miles off;

PETER IB BETS ON

191

and the old telegraph, working its black arms on the top
of Mont Valerien.

“ Is it all right ? ” she asked. “ That’s well. Hence¬
forward, whenever you come here, you will be safe as far
as your sight can reach — from this spot — all through my
introduction. See what it is to have a friend at court !
No more little dancing jailers ! And then you can gradually
get farther by yourself.

“ Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de
Boulogne — there’s a gap in the hedge you can get through ;
but mind and make everything plain in front of you — true,
before you go a step farther, or else you’ll have to wake
and begin it all over again. You have only to will it, and
think of yourself as awake, and it will come — on condition,
of course, that you have been there before. And mind,
also, you must take care how you touch things or people
— you may hear, and see, and smell ; but you mustn’t
touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about.
It blurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I
don’t know why, but it does. You must remember that
everything here is dead and gone by. With you and me
it is different ; we’re alive and real — that is, I am ; and
there would seem to be no mistake about your being real
too, Mr. Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But you’re
not ; and why you are here, and what business you have
in this, my particular dream, I cannot understand ; no
living person has ever come into it before. I can’t make
it out. I suppose it’s because I saw your reality this after¬
noon, looking out of window at the ‘ Tete Noire,’ and you
are just a' stray figment of my overtired brain — a very
agreeable figment, I admit; but you don’t exist here just
now _ you can’t possibly ; you are somewhere else, Mr.

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PETER IB BETS ON

Ibbetson ; dancing at Mabille, perhaps, or fast asleep some¬
where, and dreaming of French churches and palaces, and
public fountains, like a good young British architect —

A DREAM FAREWELL.

otherwise I shouldn’t talk to you like this, you may be
sure !

“ Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have
been of use to you, and you are very welcome here, if it
amuses you to come — especially as you are only a false

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193

dream of mine, for what else can you be ? And now I
must leave you, so good-bye.”

She disengaged her hands, and laughed her angelic
laugh, and then turned toward the park. I watched her
tall, straight figure and blowing skirts, and saw her follow
some ladies and children into a thicket that I remembered
well, and she was soon out of sight.

I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life ; as if
a joy had taken flight ; as if a precious something had
withdrawn itself from my possession, and the gap in my
periphery had closed again.

Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the
spot where she had disappeared ; and I felt inclined to
follow, but then considered this would not have been dis¬
creet. For although she was only a false dream of mine,
a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a
stray figment of my overtired and excited brain — a more
than agreeable figment (what else could she be !) — she
was also a great lady, and had treated me, a perfect
stranger and a perfect nobody, with singular courtesy and
kindness ; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deep
and strong that my very life was hers, to do what she
liked with, and always had been since I first saw her, and
always would be as long as there was breath in my body !
But this did not constitute an acquaintance without a
proper introduction, even in France — even in a dream.
Even in dreams one must be polite, even to stray fig¬
ments of one’s tired, sleeping brain.

And then what business had she , in this , my particular
dream — as she herself had asked of me ?

But was it a dream ? I remembered my lodgings
at Pentonville, that I had left yesterday morning. I

O

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PETER IB BETS ON

remembered what I was — why I came to Paris , I le-
membered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel where I
was now fast asleep, its loudly ticking clock, and all the
meagre furniture. And here was I, broad awake and
conscious, in the middle of an old avenue that had long
ceased to exist — that had been built over by a huge
brick edifice covered with newly -painted trellis- work.
I saw it, this edifice, myself, only twelve hours ago. And
yet here was everything as it had been when I was a
child ; and all through the agency of this solid phantom
of a lovely young English duchess, whose warm gloved
hands I had only this minute been holding in mine !
The scent of her gloves was still in my palm. I looked
at my watch ; it marked twenty-three minutes to twelve.
All this had happened in less than three-quarters of an
hour !

Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I
turned my steps toward my old home, and, to my sur¬
prise, was just able to look over the garden wall, which I
had once thought about ten feet high.

Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother,
darning small socks ; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was
her fashion to wear them) half-concealing her face. My
emotion and astonishment were immense. My heart
beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breath
was short.

At a little green table that I remembered well sat a
small boy, rather quaintly dressed in a bygone fashion,
with a frill round his wide shirt collar, and his golden
hair cut quite close at the top, and rather long at the
sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a
very nice little boy. He had pen and ink and copy-

PETER IB BETS ON

195

book before him, and a gilt-edged volume bound in red
morocco. I knew it at a glance ; it was Elegant Extracts.
The dog Medor lay asleep in the shade. The bees were
droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.

A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter’s
lodge and pushed the garden gate, which rang the bell
as it opened, and she went into the garden, and I followed
her ; but she took no notice of me, nor did the others.
It was Mimsey Seraskier.

I went and sat at my mother’s feet, and looked long
in her face.

I must not speak to her, nor touch her — not even
touch her busy hand with my lips, or I should “ blur the
dream.”

I got up and looked over the boy Gogo’s shoulder.
He was translating Gray’s Elegy into French ; he had
not got very far, and seemed to be stumped by the
line —

“And leaves the world to darkness and to me.”

Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder,
her thumb in her mouth, one arm on the back of his
chair. She seemed to be stumped also : it was an
awkward line to translate.

I stooped and put my hand to Medor’s nose, and felt
his warm breath. He wagged his rudiment of a tail,
and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey said —

“Regarde Medor, comme il remue la queue! C’est
le Prince Charniant qui lui chatouillc le boat du nesl ’

Said my mother who had not spoken hitherto : “ Do
speak English, Mimsey, please.”

O my God ! My mother’s voice, so forgotten, yet so

ig6

PETER IB BETS ON

familiar, so unutterably dear! I rushed to hei, and
threw myself on my knees at her feet, and seized her
hand and kissed it, crying, “ Mother, mother ! ”

A strange blur came over everything ; the sense of

“ MOTHER, MOTHER ! "

reality was lost. All became as a dream — a beautiful
dream — but only a dream ; and I woke.

I woke in my small hotel bedroom, and saw all the
furniture, and my hat and clothes, by the light of a lamp
outside, and heard the ticking of the clock on the mantel-

PETER I BEETS ON

97

piece, and the rumbling of a cart and cracking of a whip
in the street, and yet felt I was not a bit more awake
than I had been a minute ago in my strange vision — not
so much !

1 heard my watch ticking its little tick on the
mantelpiece by the side of the clock, like a pony trotting
by a big horse. The clock struck twelve. I got up and
looked at my watch by the light of the gaslit streets ; it
marked the same. My dream had lasted an hour — I
had gone to bed at half-past ten.

I tried to recall it all, and did so to the smallest
particular — all except the tune the organ had played, and
the words belonging to it ; they were on the tip of my
tongue, and refused to come farther. I got up again and
walked about the room, and felt that it had not been like
a dream at all ; it was more “ recollectable ” than all my
real adventures ot the previous day. It had ceased to
be like a dream, and had become an actuality from the
moment I first touched the duchess’s hand to the moment
I kissed my mother’s, and the blur came. It was an
entirely new and utterly bewildering experience that I
had gone through.

In a dream there are always breaks, inconsistencies,
lapses, incoherence, breaches of continuity, many links
missing in the chain ; only at points is the impression
vivid enough to stamp itself afterward on the waking
mind, and even then it is never so really vivid as the
impression of real life, although it ought to have seemed
so in the dream. One remembers it well on awaking,
but soon it fades, and then it is only one’s remembrance

of it that one remembers.

There was nothing of this in my dream.

PETER IB BETS ON

198

It was something like the “ camera-obscura ’ on
Ramsgate pier : one goes in and finds one’s self in total
darkness ; the eye is prepared ; one is thoroughly ex¬
pectant and wide-awake.

Suddenly there flashes on the sight the moving
picture of the port and all the life therein, and the houses
and cliffs beyond ; and farther still the green hills, the
white clouds, and blue sky.

Little green waves chase each other in the harbour,
breaking into crisp white foam. Sea-gulls wheel and
dash and dip behind masts and ropes and pulleys ; shiny
brass fittings on gangway and compass flash in the sun
without dazzling the eye ; gay Liliputians walk and talk,
their white teeth, no bigger than a pin’s point, gleam in
laughter, with never a sound ; a steamboat laden with
excursionists comes in, its paddles churning the water,
and you cannot hear them. Not a detail is missed — not
a button on a sailor’s jacket, not a hair on his face. All
the light and colour of sea and earth and sky, that serve
for many a mile, are here concentrated within a few
square feet. And what colour it is ! A painter’s de¬
spair ! It is light itself, more beautiful than that which
streams through old church windows of stained glass.
And all is framed in utter darkness, so that the fully
dilated pupils can see their very utmost. It seems as
though all had been painted life-size and then shrunk,
like a Japanese picture on crape, to a millionth of its
natural size, so as to intensify and mellow the effect.

It is all over : you come out into the open sunshine,
and all seems garish and bare and bald and common¬
place. All magic has faded out of the scene ; everything
is too far away from everything else ; everybody one

PETER IB BETS ON

99

meets seems coarse and Brobdingnagian and too near.
And one has been looking at the like of it all one’s
life!

Thus with my dream compared to common, waking,
everyday experience ; only instead of being mere flat,
silent little images moving on a dozen square feet of
Bristol board, and appealing to the eye alone, the things
and people in my dream had the same roundness and
relief as in life, and were life-size ; one could move
amongst them and behind them, and feel as if one could
touch and clasp and embrace them if one dared. And
the ear, as well as the eye, was made free of this dark
chamber of the brain : one heard their speech and laughter
as in life. And that was not all, for soft breezes fanned
the cheek, the sparrows twittered, the sun gave out its
warmth, and the scent of many flowers made the illusion
complete.

And then the Duchess of Towers ! She had been
not only visible and audible like the rest, but tangible as
well, to the fullest extent of the sensibility that lay in
my nerves of touch ; when my hands held hers I felt as
though I were drawing all her life into mine.

With the exception of that one figure, all had
evidently been as it had been in reality a few years ago,
to the very droning of an insect, to the very fall of a
blossom !

Had I gone mad by any chance? I had possessed
the past, as I had longed to do a few hours before.

What are sight and hearing and touch and the rest ?

Five senses in all.

The stars, worlds upon worlds, so many billions of
miles away, what are they for us but meie shiny specks

200

PETER IB BETS ON

on a network of nerves behind the eye ? How does one
feel them there ?

The sound of my friend’s voice, what is it ? The
clasp of his hand, the pleasant sight of his face, the scent
of his pipe and mine, the taste of the bread and cheese
and beer we eat and drink together, what are they but
figments (stray figments, perhaps) of the brain — little
thrills through nerves made on purpose, and without
which there would be no stars, no pipe, no bread and
cheese and beer, no voice, no friend, no me ?

And is there, perchance, some sixth sense embedded
somewhere in the thickness of the flesh — some survival
of the past, of the race, of our own childhood even,
etiolated by disuse ? or some rudiment, some effort to
begin, some priceless hidden faculty to be developed into
a future source of bliss and consolation for our de¬
scendants ? some nerve that now can only be made to
thrill and vibrate in a dream, too delicate as yet to ply
its function in the light of common day ?

And was I, of all people in the world — I, Peter
Ibbetson, architect and surveyor, Wharton Street, Penton-
ville — most futile, desultory, and uneducated dreamer of
dreams — destined to make some great psychical discovery?

Pondering deeply over these solemn things, I sent
myself to sleep again, as was natural enough — but no
more to dream. I slept soundly until late in the
morning, and breakfasted at the Bains Deligny, a
delightful swimming-bath near the Pont de la Concorde
(on the other side), and spent most of the day there,
alternately swimming, and dozing, and smoking cigarettes,
and thinking of the wonders of the night before, and
hoping for their repetition on the night to follow.

PETER IBBETSON

201

Of

La

I remained a week in Paris, loafing about by day
among old haunts of my childhood — a melancholy
pleasure — and at night trying to “dream true,” as my
dream duchess had called it. Only once did I succeed.

I had gone to bed thinking most persistently of the
“ Mare d’Auteujl,” and it seemed to me that as soon as I
was fairly asleep I woke up there, and knew directly that
I had come into a “ true dream ” again, by the reality and
the bliss. It was transcendent life once more — a very
ecstasy of remembrance made actual, and such an exquisite
surprise !

There was M. le Major, in his green frockcoat, on his
knees near a little hawthorn-tree by the brink, among the
waterlogged roots of which there dwelt a cunning old
dytiscus as big as the bowl of a tablespoon— a prize we

had often tried to catch in vain.

M. le Major had a net in his hand, and was watching
the water intently ; the perspiration was trickling down
his nose ; and around him, in silent expectation and
suspense, were grouped Gogo and Mimsey and my three
cousins, and a good-humoured freckled Irish boy I had
quite forgotten, and I suddenly remembered that his name
was Johnstone, that he was very combative, and that he
lived in the Rue Basse (now Rue Raynouard).

On the other side of the pond my mother was keeping
Medor from the water, for fear of his spoiling the spoit,
and on the bench by the willow sat Madame Seiaskier
lovely Madame Seraskier — deeply interested. . I sat down
by her side and gazed at her with a joy there is no telling.

An old woman came by, selling conical wafer-cakes,
and singing, “ V'la Vplaisir , mesdames — VTa Vplaisir ! ”
Madame Seraskier bought ten sous’ worth a mountain !

«

THE MAJOR AND THE WATER-BEETLE.

PETER I BEETS ON

203

M. le Major made a dash with his net — unsuccessfully,
as usual. Medor was let loose, and plunged with a plunge
that made big waves all round the mare, and dived after
an imaginary stone, amid general shouts and shrieks of
excitement. O the familiar voices ! I almost wept.

Medor came out of the water without his stone and
shook himself, twisting and barking and grinning and
gyrating, as was his way, quite close to me. In my
delight and sympathy I was ill-advised enough to try
and stroke him, and straight the dream was “ blurred ”
— changed to an ordinary dream, where all things were
jumbled up and incomprehensible; a dream pleasant
enough, but different in kind and degree — an ordinary
dream ; and in my distress thereat I woke, and failed to
dream again (as I wished to dream) that night.

Next morning (after an early swim) I went to the
Louvre, and stood spellbound before Leonardo da Vinci’s
“ Lisa Gioconda,” trying hard to find where the wondrous
beauty lay that I had heard so extravagantly extolled ,
and not trying very successfully, for I had seen Madame
Seraskier once more, and felt that “Gioconda” was a
fraud.

Presently I was conscious of a group just behind me,
and heard a pleasant male English voice exclaim—

“ And now, duchess, let me present you to my first
and last and only love, Monna Lisa. I turned lound,
and there stood a soldier- like old gentleman and two
ladies (one of whom was the Duchess of lowers), staring
at the picture.

As I made way for them I caught her eye, and in it
again, as I felt sure, a kindly look of recognition— just
for half a second. She evidently recollected having seen

204

PETER IB BETS ON

me at Lady Cray’s, where I had stood all the evening
alone in a rather conspicuous corner. I was so excep¬
tionally tall (in those days of not such tall people as now)
that it was easy to notice and remember me, especially as

LISA GIOCONDA.

I wore my beard, which it was unusual to do then among
Englishmen.

She little guessed how / remembered her ; she little
knew all she was and had been to me — in life and in a
dream !

My emotion was so great that I felt it in my very
knees ; I could scarcely walk ; I was as weak as water.
My worship for the beautiful stranger was becoming

PETER IBBETSON

205

almost a madness. She was even more lovely than
Madame Seraskier. It was cruel to be like that.

It seems that I was fated to fall down and prostrate
myself before very tall, slender women, with dark hair and
lily skins and light angelic eyes. The fair damsel who
sold tripe and pigs’ feet in Clerkenwell was also of that
type, I remembered ; and so was Mrs. Deane. Foitunately
for me it is not a common one !

All that day I spent on quays and bridges, leaning
over parapets, and looking at the Seine, and nursing my
sweet despair, and calling myself the biggest fool in
Paris, and recalling over and over again that gray-blue
kindly glance — my only light, the Light of the World
for ME !

My brief holiday over, I went back to London to
Pentonville — and resumed my old occupations ; but the
whole tenor of my existence was changed.

The day, the working-day (and I worked harder than
ever, to Lintot’s great satisfaction), passed as in an un¬
important dream of mild content and cheerful acquiescence

in everything, work or play.

There was no more quarrelling with my destiny, nor
wish to escape from myself for a moment. My whole
being, as I went about on business or recreation bent,
was suffused with the memory of the Duchess of Towers
as with a warm inner glow that kept me at peace with all
mankind and myself, and thrilled by the hope, the en¬
chanting hope, of once more meeting her image at night
in a dream, in or about my old home at Passy, and perhaps
even feeling once more that ineffable bliss of touching her
hand. Though why should she be there ?

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PETER IB BETS ON

When the blessed hour came round for sleep, the real
business of my life began. I practised “ dreaming true ”
as one practises a fine art, and after many failures I became
a professed expert — a master.

I lay straight on my back, with my feet crossed, and
my hands clasped above my head in a symmetrical posi¬
tion ; I would fix my will intently and persistently on
a certain point in space and time that was within my
memory — for instance, the avenue gate on a certain
Christmas afternoon, when I remembered waiting for M.
le Major to go for a walk — at the same time never losing
touch of my own present identity as Peter Ibbetson,
architect, Wharton Street, Pentonville ; all of which is
not so easy to manage as one might think, although the
dream duchess had said, “ Ce n’est que le premier pas qui
coute ” ; and finally one night, instead of dreaming the
ordinary dreams I had dreamed all my life (but twice),
I had the rapture of waking rip, the minute I was fairly
asleep, by the avenue gate, and of seeing Gogo Pasquier
sitting on one of the stone posts and looking up the snowy
street for the major. Presently he jumped up to meet his
old friend, whose bottle-green-clad figure had just appeared
in the distance. I saw and heard their warm and friendly
greeting, and walked unperceived by their side through
Auteuil to the mare , and back by the fortifications, and
listened to the thrilling adventures of one Fier-a-bras,
which, I confess, I had completely forgotten.

As we passed all three together through the “ Porte
de la Muette,” M. le Major’s powers of memory (or inven¬
tion) began to flag a little — for he suddenly said “ Cric!”
But Gogo pitilessly answered “ Crac ! ” and the story had
to go on till we reached at dusk the gate of the Pasquiers’

PETER IB BETS ON

207

house, where these two most affectionately parted, after
making an appointment for the morrow ; and I went in
with Gogo, and sat in the schoolroom while Therese gave
him his tea and heard her tell him all that had happened
in Passy that afternoon. Then he read and summed and

THE STORY OF THE GIANT FIER-A-BRAS.

translated with his mother till it was time to go up to bed,
and I sat by his bedside as he was lulled asleep by his
mother’s harp . . . how I listened with all my ears and
heart, till the sweet strain ceased for the night ! Then out
of the hushed house I stole, thinking unutterable things
through the snow-clad garden, where Medor was baying the
moon — through the silent avenue and park — through the

PETER IB BETS ON

208

deserted streets of Passy — and on by desolate quays and
bridges to dark quarters of Paris ; till I fell awake in my
tracks and found that another dreary and commonplace
day had dawned over London — but no longer dreary and
commonplace for me, with such experiences to look back
and forward to — such a strange inheritance of wonder and
delight !

I had a few more occasional failures, such as, for in¬
stance, when the thread between my waking and sleeping
life was snapped by a moment’s carelessness, or possibly
by some movement of my body in bed, in which case
the vision would suddenly get blurred, the reality of it
destroyed, and an ordinary dream rise in its place. My
immediate consciousness of this was enough to wake me
up on the spot, and I would begin again, da capo , till all
went as I wished.

Evidently our brain contains something akin both to a
photographic plate and a phonographic cylinder, and many
other things of the same kind not yet discovered ; not a
sight or a sound or a smell is lost ; not a taste or a feeling or
an emotion. Unconscious memory records them all, with¬
out our even heeding what goes on around us beyond the
things that attract our immediate interest or attention.

Thus night after night I saw reacted before me scenes
not only fairly remembered, but scenes utterly forgotten,
and yet as unmistakably true as the remembered ones,
and all bathed in that ineffable light, the light of other
days — the light that never was on sea or land, and yet
the light of absolute truth.

How it transcends in value as well as in beauty the
garish light of common day, by which poor humanity has
hitherto been content to live and die, disdaining through

PETER IB BE TS ON

209

lack of knowledge the shadow for the substance, the spirit
for the matter ! I verified the truth of these sleeping ex¬
periences in every detail : old family letters I had pre¬
served, and which I studied on awaking, confirmed what
I had seen and heard in my dream ; old stories explained
themselves. It was all bygone truth, garnered in some
remote corner of the brain, and brought out of the dim
past as I willed, and made actual once more.

And strange to say, and most inexplicable, I saw it all
as an independent spectator, an outsider, not as an actor
going again through scenes in which he has played a part
before !

Yet many things perplexed and puzzled me.

For instance, Gogo’s back, and the back of his head,
when I stood behind him, were as visible and apparently
as true to life as his face, and I had never seen his back or
the back of his head ; it was much later in life that I
learned the secret of two mirrors. And then, when Gogo
went out of the room, sometimes apparently passing
through me as he did so and coming out at the other
side (with a momentary blurring of the dream), the rest
would go on talking just as reasonably, as naturally, as
before. Could the trees and walls and furniture have had
ears and eyes, those long-vanished trees and walls and
furniture that existed now only in my sleeping brain, and
have retained the sound and shape and meaning of all
that passed when Gogo, my only conceivable remem¬
brancer, was away ?

Francoise, the cook, would come into the drawing¬
room to discuss the dinner with my mother when Gogo
was at school ; and I would hear the orders given, and
later I would assist at the eating of the meal (to which

P

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PETER IB BETS ON

Gogo would invariably do ample justice), and it was just
as my mother had ordered. Mystery of mysteries !

What a pleasant life it was they led together, these
ghosts of a bygone time ! Such a genial, smooth, easy¬
going, happy-go-lucky state of things — half bourgeois, half
Bohemian, and yet with a well-marked simplicity, refine¬
ment, and distinction of bearing and speech that were
quite aristocratic.

The servants (only three — Therese the housemaid,
Francoise the cook, and English Sarah, who had been my
nurse and was now my mother’s maid) were on the kind¬
liest and most familiar terms with us, and talked to us like
friends, and interested themselves in our concerns, and we
in theirs ; I noticed that they always wished us each good¬
morning and good-night — a pretty French fashion of the
Passy bourgeoisie in Louis Philippe's time (he was a bour¬
geois king).

Our cuisine was bourgeoise also. Peter Ibbetson’s
mouth watered (after his tenpenny London dinner) to see
and smell the steam of “ soupe a la bonne femme,” “ soupe
aux choux,” “ pot au feu,” “blanquette de veau,” “ bceuf a la
mode,” “ cotelettes de pore a la sauce piquante,” “ vinai¬
grette de boeuf bouilli — that endless variety of good
things on which French people grow fat so young — and
most excellent claret (at one franc a bottle in those happy
days) : its bouquet seemed to fill the room as soon as the
cork was drawn !

Sometimes, such a repast ended, “ le beau Pasquier,”
in the fulness of his heart, would suddenly let off im¬
possible fireworks of vocalisation, ascending rockets of
chromatic notes which would explode softly very high up
and come down in full cadences, trills, roulades, like

PETER IB BETS ON

211

beautiful coloured stars ; and Therese would exclaim,
“ Ah, q’c’est beau ! ” as if she had been present at a real
pyrotechnic display ; and Therese was quite right. I
have never heard the like from any human throat, and
should not have believed it possible. Only Joachim’s
violin can do such beautiful things so beautifully.

Or else he would tell us of wolves he had shot in
Brittany, or wild boars in Burgundy — for he was a great
sportsman — or of his adventures as a garde du corps of
Charles Dix, or of the wonderful inventions that were so
soon to bring us fame and fortune ; and he would loyally
drink to Henri Cinq ; and he was so droll and buoyant
and witty that it was as good to hear him speak as to
hear him sing.

But there was another and a sad side to all this
strange comedy of vanished lives.

They built castles in the air, and made plans, and
talked of all the wealth and happiness that would be
theirs when my father’s ship came home, and of all the
good they would do, pathetically unconscious of the near
future ; which, of course, was all past history to their
loving audience of one.

And then my tears would flow with the unbearable
ache of love and pity combined ; they would fall and dry
on the waxed floors of my old home in Passy, and I
would find them still wet on my pillow in Pentonville
when I woke. . . .

Soon I discovered by practice that I was able for a
second or two to be more than a mere spectator to be
an actor once more ; to turn myself (Ibbetson) into my
old self (Gogo), and thus be touched and caressed by those

‘ O Richard, 6 mon roi !
L’univers t’abandonne.”

LE BEAU PASQUIEK DRINKS TO HIS KING.

PETER IB BETS ON

213

I had so loved. My mother kissed me and I felt it ; just
as long as I could hold my breath I could walk hand in
hand with Madame Seraskier, or feel Mimsey’s small
weight on my back and her arms round my neck for four
or five yards as I walked, before blurring the dream ; and
the blur would soon pass away, if it did not wake me, and
I was Peter Ibbetson once more, walking and sitting
amongst them, hearing them talk and laugh, watching
them at their meals, in their walks ; listening to my father’s
songs, my mother’s sweet playing, and always unseen and
unheeded by them. Moreover, I soon learnt to touch
things without sensibly blurring the dream. I would cull
a rose, and stick it in my button-hole, and there it re¬
mained — but lo ! the very rose I had just culled was still
on the rose-bush also! I would pick up a stone and
throw it at the wall, where it disappeared without a sound
— and the very same stone still lay at my feet, however
often I might pick it up and throw it !

But, wonderful to relate, if I threw something belong¬
ing to myself, my penknife or my pipe-case, or any such
personal dream-property, it would rebound from the wall
just as in real life, and fall on the ground — and remain
there till I picked it up — even for days or weeks ! was
not it odd ?

No waking joy in the world can give, can equal in
intensity, these complex joys I had when asleep ; waking
joys seem so slight, so vague in comparison— so much
escapes the senses through lack of concentration and
undivided attention — the waking perceptions are so
blunt.

It was a life within a life — an intenser life — in which
the fresh perceptions of childhood combined with the

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PETER IB BETS ON

magic of dreamland, and in which there was but one un¬
satisfied longing ; but its name was Lion.

It was the passionate longing to meet the Duchess of
Towers once more in that land of dreams.

Thus for a time I went on, more solitary than ever,
but well compensated for all my loneliness by this strange
new life that had opened itself to me, and never ceasing
to marvel and rejoice — when one morning I received a
note from Lady Cray, who wanted some stables built at
Cray, their country-seat in Hertfordshire, and begged I
would go there for the day and night.

I was bound to accept this invitation, as a mere
matter of business, of course ; as a friend, Lady Cray
seemed to have dropped me long ago, “ like a ’ot potato,”
blissfully unconscious that it was I who had dropped
her.

But she received me as a friend — an old friend. All
my shyness and snobbery fell from me at the mere touch
of her hand.

I had arrived at Cray early in the afternoon, and
had immediately set about my work, which took several
hours, so that I got to the house only just in time to
dress for dinner.

When I came into the drawing-room there were
several people there, and Lady Cray presented me to a
young lady, the vicar’s daughter, whom I was to take in
to dinner.

I was very much impressed on being told by her that
the company assembled in the drawing-room included no
less a person than Sir Edwin Landseer. Many years
ago I had copied an engraving of one of his pictures for

MARY IS LATE,

216

PETER IB BETS ON

Mimsey Seraskier. It was called “The Challenge,” or “Com¬
ing Events cast their Shadows before them.” I feasted my
eyes on the wondrous little man, who seemed extremely
chatty and genial, and quite unembarrassed by his fame.

A guest was late, and Lord Cray, who seemed some¬
what peevishly impatient for his food, exclaimed —

“Mary wouldn’t be Mary if she were punctual ! ”

Just then Mary came in — and Mary was no less a
person than the Duchess of Towers !

My knees trembled under me ; but there was no time
to give way to any such tender weakness. Lord Cray
walked away with her ; the procession filed into the
dining-room, and somewhere at the end of it my young
vicaress and myself.

The duchess sat a long way from me, but I met her
glance for a moment, and fancied I saw again in it that
glimmer of kindly recognition.

My neighbour, who was charming, asked me if I did
not think the Duchess of Towers the most beautiful
woman I had ever seen.

I assented with right good will, and was told that
she was as good as she was beautiful, and as clever as
she was good (as if I did not know it) ; that she would
give away the very clothes off her back ; that there was
no trouble she would not take for others ; that she did
not get on well with her husband, who drank, and was

altogether bad and vile \ that she had a great sorrow _

an only child, an idiot, to whom she was devoted, and
who would some day be the Duke of Towers ;* that
she was highly accomplished, a great linguist, a great
musician, and about the most popular woman in all
English society.

PETER IB BETS ON

217

Ah ! who loved the Duchess of Towers better than
this poor scribe, in whose soul she lived and shone like a
bright particular star — like the sun ; and who, without
his knowing, was being rapidly drawn into the sphere of
her attraction, as Lintot called it ; one day to be finally
absorbed, I trust, for ever !

“And who was this wonderful Duchess of Towers
before she married ? ” I asked.

“ She was a Miss Seraskier. Her father was a
Hungarian, a physician, and a political reformer — a most
charming person ; that’s where she gets her manners.
Her mother, whom she lost when she was quite a child,
was a very beautiful Irish girl of good family, a first
cousin of Lord Cray’s — a Miss Desmond, who ran away
with the interesting patriot. They lived somewhere near
Paris. It was there that Madame Seraskier died of
cholera. . . . What is the matter, are you ill ? ”

I made out that I was faint from the heat, and con¬
cealed as well as I could the flood of emotion and be¬
wilderment that overwhelmed me.

I dared not look again at the Duchess of Towers.

“ Oh ! little Mimsey dear, with your poor thin arms
round my neck,- and your cold, pale cheek against mine.
I felt them there only last night ! To have grown into
such a splendid vision of female health and strength and
beauty as this — with that enchanting, ever -ready laugh
and smile ! Why, of course, those eyes, so lashless then,
so thickly fringed to-day ! — how could I have mistaken
them ? Ah, Mimsey, you never smiled or laughed in
those days, or I should have known your eyes again !
Is it possible — is it possible ? ”

Thus I went on to myself till the ladies left, my fair

2 I 8

PETER IB BETS ON

young companion expressing her kind anxiety and polite
hope that I would soon be myself again.

I sat silent till it was time to join the ladies (I could
not even follow the witty and brilliant anecdotes of the
great painter, who held the table) ; and then I went up
to my room. I could not face her again so soon after
what I had heard.

SWEET AND BITTER MUSIC.

The good Lord Cray came to make kind inquiries,
but I soon satisfied him that my indisposition was
nothing. He stayed on, however, and talked ; his dinner
seemed to have done him a great deal of good, and he
wanted to smoke (and somebody to smoke with), which
he had not been able to do in the dining-room on

PETER IB BETS ON

219

account of some reverend old bishop who was present.
So he rolled himself a little cigarette, like a Frenchman,
and puffed away to his heart’s content.

He little guessed how his humble architect wished
him away, until he began to talk of the Duchess of
Towers — “ Mary Towers,” as he called her — and to tell
me how “ Towers ” deserved to be kicked, and whipped
at the cart’s tail. “Why, she’s the best and most
beautiful woman in England, and as sharp as a needle !
If it hadn’t been for her, he’d have been in the bank¬
ruptcy court long ago,” etc. “ There’s not a duchess in
England that’s fit to hold the candle to her, either for
looks or brains, or breedin’ either. Her mother (the
loveliest woman that ever lived, except Mary) was a con¬
nection of mine ; that’s where she gets her manners ! ”
etc.

Thus did this noble earl make music for me — sweet
and bitter music.

Mary ! It is a heavenly name, especially on English
lips, and spelled in the English mode with the adorable
y t Great men have had a passion for it — Byron, Shelley,
Burns. But none, methinks, a greater passion than I, nor
with such good cause.

And yet there must be a bad Mary now and then,
here or there, and even an ugly one. Indeed, theie was
once a Bloody Mary who was both ! It seems incredible !

Mary, indeed! Why not Hecuba? For what was

I to the Duchess of Towers?

When I was alone again I went to bed, and tried to
sleep on my back, with my arms up, in the hope of
a true dream ; but sleep would not come, and I passed
a white night, as the French say. I rose eaily and

220

PETER I BEETS ON

walked about the park, and tried to interest myself in
the stables till it was breakfast-time. Nobody was up,
and I breakfasted alone with Lady Cray, who was as kind
as she could be. I do not think she could have found

AN INTRODUCTION

me a very witty companion. And then I went back to
the stables to think, and fell into a doze.

At about twelve I heard the sound of wooden balls,
and found a lawn where some people were playing
“ croquet.” It was quite a new game, and a few years
later became the fashion.

PETER IB BETS ON

221

I sat down under a large weeping-ash close to the
lawn ; it was like a tent, with chairs and tables underneath.

Presently Lady Cray came there with the Duchess of
Towers. I wanted to fly, but was rooted to the spot.

Lady Cray presented me, and almost immediately a
servant came with a message for her, and I was left with
the One Woman in the World ! My heart was in my
mouth, my throat was dry, my pulse was beating in my
temples.

She asked me in the most natural manner, if I played
“ croquet.”

“Yes — no — at least sometimes — that is, I never
heard of it — oh — I forget!” I groaned at my idiocy,
and hid my face in my hands. She asked if I were still
unwell, and I said no ; and then she began to talk quite
easily about anything, everything, till I felt more at my
ease.

Her voice ! I had never heard it well but in a dream,
and it was the same — a very rich and modulated voice —
low— contralto, with many varied and delightful inflexions ;
and she used more action in speaking than the gener¬
ality of Englishwomen, thereby reminding me of Madame
Seraskier. I noticed that her hands were long and
very narrow, and also her feet, and remembered that
Mimsey’s were like that — they were considered poor
Mimsey’s only beauty. I also noticed an almost imper¬
ceptible scar on her left temple, and remembered with a
thrill that I had noticed it in my dream as we walked up
the avenue together. In waking life I had never been
near enough to her to notice a small scar, and Mimsey
had no scar of the kind in the old days- — of that I felt
sure, for I had seen much of Mimsey lately.

222

PETER IB BETS ON

I grew more accustomed to the situation, and ventured
to say that I had once met her at Lady Cray’s in London.

“ Oh yes ; I remember. Giulia Grisi sang the
‘ Willow Song ’ ! ” And then she crinkled up her eyes,
and laughed, and blushed, and went on : “I noticed you
standing in a corner, under the famous Gainsborough.
You reminded me of a dear little French boy I once
knew who was very kind to me when I was a little girl in
France, and whose father you happen to be like. But I
found that you were Mr. Ibbetson, an English architect,
and, Lady Cray tells me, a very rising one.”

“ I was a little French boy once. I had to change my
name to please a relative, and become English — that is, I
was always really English, you know.”

“Good heavens, what an extraordinary thing! What
was your name then ? ”

“ Pasquier — Gogo Pasquier ! ” I groaned, and the
tears came into my eyes, and I looked away. The
duchess made no answer, and when I turned and looked
at her she was looking at me, very pale, her lips quite
white, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and trembling
all over.

I said, “You used to be little Mimsey Seraskier, and
I used to carry you pickaback ! ”

“ Oh don’t ! oh don’t ! ” she said, and began to cry.

I got up and walked about under the ash-tree till she
had dried her eyes. I he croquet-players were intent upon
their game.

I again sat down beside her ; she had dried her eyes,
and at length she said — -

“ What a dreadful thing it was about your poor father
and mother, and my dear mother ! Do you remember

PETER IB BETS ON

her? She died a week after you left. I went to Russia
with papa — Dr. Seraskier. What a terrible break-up it
all was ! ”

And then we gradually fell to talking quite naturally
about old times, and dear dead people. She never took
her eyes off mine. After a while I said — -

“ I went to Passy, and found everything changed and
built over. It nearly drove me mad to see. I went to
St. Cloud, and saw you driving with the Empress of the
French. That night I had such an extraordinary dream !

I dreamed I was floundering about the Rue de la Pompe,
and had just got to the avenue gate, and you were there.”

“ Good heavens ! ” she whispered, and turned white
again, and trembled all over ; “ what do you mean ? ”

“ Yes,” I said ; “ you came to my rescue. I was pur¬
sued by gnomes and horrors.” . . .

She. “ Good heavens ! by — by two little jailers, a
man and his wife, who danced and were trying to hem
you in ? ”

It was now my turn to ejaculate “ Good heavens !
We both shook and trembled together.

I said : “ You gave me your hand, and all came
straight at once. My old school rose in place of the
jail.”

She. “ With a yellow omnibus ? And boys going off

to their premiere communion ? ”

/. “ Yes ; and there was a crowd — le Pere et la Mere
Francois, and Madame Liard, the grocer’s wife, and— and
Mimsey Seraskier, with her cropped head. And an organ
was playing a tune I knew quite well, but cannot now le-

call.” ...

She. “ Wasn’t it ‘ Maman, les p’tits bateaux ? ’ ”

224

PETER IBBETSON

I. “ Oh, of course !

‘ Maman, les p’tits bateaux
Qui vont sur l’eau,

Ont-ils des jambes ? ’ ”

She. “ That’s it !

‘ Eh oui, petit beta !

S’ils n’avaient pas

Ils n’march’raient pas !’ ”

She sank back in her chair, pale and prostrate. After
a while —

She. “ And then I gave you good advice about how
to dream true, and we got to my old house, and I tried to
make you read the letters on the portico, and you read
them wrong, and I laughed.”

/. “Yes; I read ‘ Tete Noire.’ Wasn’t it idiotic?”

She. “ And then I touched you again and you read
‘ Parvis Notre Dame.’ ”

I. “Yes! and you touched me again , and I read
‘ Parva sed Apta ’- — small but fit.”

She. “ Is that what it means ? Why, when you were
a boy you told me sed apta was all one word and was the
Latin for ‘ Pavilion.’ I believed it ever since, and thought
‘ Parva sed Apta ’ meant petit pavilion ! ”

/. “ I blush for my bad Latin ! After this you gave
me good advice again, about not touching anything or
picking flowers. I never have. And then you went away
into the park — the light went out of my life, sleeping or
waking. I have never been able to dream of you since.
I don’t suppose I shall ever meet you again after to¬
day ! ”

PETER IB BETS ON

225

After this we were silent for a long time, though I
hummed and hawed now and then, and tried to speak.
I was sick with the conflict of my feelings. At length
she said —

“ Dear Mr. Ibbetson, this is all so extraordinary that
I must go away and think it all over. I cannot tell you
what it has been to me to meet you once more. And
that double dream, common to us both ! Oh, I am dazed
beyond expression, and feel as if I were dreaming now —
except that this all seems so unreal and impossible — so
untrue ! We had better part now. I don’t know if I
shall ever meet you again. You will be often in my
thoughts, but never in my dreams again — that, at least, I
can command — nor I in yours ; it must not be. My poor
father taught me how to dream before he died, that I
might find innocent consolation in dreams for my waking
troubles, which are many and great, as his were. If I can
see that any good may come of it, I will write — but no —
you must not expect a letter. I will now say good-bye
and leave you. You go to-day, do you not ? That is
best. I think this had better be a final adieu. I cannot
tell you of what interest you are to me and always have
been. I thought you had died long ago. We shall often
think of each other — that is inevitable — but never , never
dream. That will not do.

“ Dear Mr. Ibbetson, I wish you all the good that one
human being can wish another. And now good-bye, and
may God in heaven bless you ! ”

She rose, trembling and white, and her eyes wet with
tears, and wrung both my hands, and left me as she had
left me in the dream.

The light went out of my life, and I was once more

Q

226

PETER IB BETS ON

alone^more wretchedly and miserably alone than if I
had never met her.

A FAREWELL

I went back to Pentonville, and outwardly took up the
thread of my monotonous existence, and ate, drank, and
worked, and went about as usual, but as one in an ordinary
dream. For now dreams — true dreams — had become the
only reality for me.

So great, so inconceivable and unexampled a wonder
had been wrought in a dream that all the conditions of
life had been altered and reversed.

I and another human being had met — actually and

PETER IBBETSON

227

really met — in a double dream, a dream common to us
both, and clasped each other’s hands ! And each had
spoken words to the other which neither ever would or
ever could forget.

And this other human being and I had been enshrined
in each other’s memory for years — since childhood — and
were now linked together by a tie so marvellous, an ex¬
perience so unprecedented, that neither could ever well be
out of the other’s thoughts as long as life and sense and
memory lasted.

Her very self, as we talked to each other under the
ash-tree at Cray, was less vividly present to me than that
other and still dearer self of hers with whom I had
walked up the avenue in that balmy dream atmosphere,
where we had lived and moved and had our being
together for a few short moments, yet each believing
the other at the time to be a mere figment of his own
(and her) sleeping imagination ; such stuff as dreams are
made of !

And lo ! it was all true — as true as the common ex¬
perience of everyday life — more (ten times more), because
through our keener and more exalted sense perceptions,
and less divided attention, we were more conscious of each
other’s real inner being — linked closer together for a space
— than two mortals had probably ever been since the world
began.

That clasp of the hands in the dream — how infinitely
more it had conveyed of one to the other than even that
sad farewell clasp at Cray !

In my poor outer life I waited in vain for a letter ; in
vain I haunted the parks and streets — the street where she
pVed — in the hope of seeing her once more. The house

228

PETER IB BETS ON

was shut ; she was away — in America, as I afterward
learned — with her husband and child.

At night, in the familiar scenes I had learned so well
to conjure up, I explored every nook and corner with the
same yearning desire to find a trace of her. I was hardly
ever away from “ Parva sed Apta.” There were Madame
Seraskier and Mimsey and the major, and my mother and
Gogo, at all times, in and out, and of course as unconscious
of my solid presence as though I had never existed. And
as I looked at Mimsey and her mother I wondered at
my obtuseness in not recognising at the very first glance
who the Duchess of Towers had been, and whose daughter.
The height, the voice, the eyes, certain tricks of gait and
gesture — how could I have failed to know her again after
such recent dream opportunities ?

And Seraskier, towering among them all, as his
daughter now towered among women. I saw that he
lived again in his daughter ; his was the smile that closed
up the eyes, as hers did ; had Mimsey ever smiled in those
days, I should have known her again by this very character¬
istic trait.

Of this daughter of his (the Mimsey of the past years,
not the duchess of to-day) I never now could have enough,
and made her go through again and again all the scenes
with Gogo, so dear to my remembrance, and to hers. I
was, in fact, the Prince Charmant, of whose unseen attend¬
ance she had been conscious in some inconceivable way.
What a strange foresight ! But where was the fee Tara-
patapoum ? Never there during this year of unutterable
longing ; she had said it ; never, never again should I be
in her dream, or she in mine, however constantly we might
dwell in each other’s thoughts.

PETER IB BETS ON

229

So sped a twelvemonth after that last meeting in the
flesh at Cray.

And now, with an unwilling heart and most re¬
luctant pen, I must come to the great calamity of my
life, which I will endeavour to tell in as few words as
possible.

The reader, if he has been good enough to read with¬
out skipping, will remember the handsome Mrs. Deane, to
whom I fancied I lost my heart, in Hopshire, a few years
back.

I had not seen her since — had, indeed, almost forgotten
her — but had heard vaguely that she had left Hopshire,
and come to London, and married a wealthy man much
older than herself.

Well, one day I was in Hyde Park, gaz.ing at the
people in the drive, when a spick-and-span and very brand-
new open carriage went by, and in it sat Mrs. Deane
(that was), all alone in her glory, and looking very sulky
indeed. She recognised me and bowed, and I bowed
back again, with just a moment’s little flutter of the heart
— an involuntary tribute to auld-lang-syne — and went
on my way, wondering that I could ever have admired
her so.

Presently, to my surprise, I was touched on the elbow.
It was Mrs. Deane again — I will call her Mrs. Deane still.
She had got out a.nd followed me on foot. It was her
wish that I should drive round the park with her and talk
of old times. I obeyed, and for the first and last time
found myself forming part of that proud and gay procession
I had so often watched with curious eyes.

She seemed anxious to know whether I had ever made

230

PETER I BEETS ON

it up with Colonel Ibbetson, and pleased to hear that I
had not, and that I probably never should, and that my
feeling against him was strong and bitter and likely to
last.

She appeared to hate him very much.

She inquired kindly after myself and my prospects in
life, but did not seem deeply interested in my answers
— until later, when I talked of my French life, and my
dear father and mother, when she listened with eager
sympathy, and I was much touched. She asked if I had
portraits of them ; I had — most excellent miniatures ; and
when we parted I had promised to call upon her next
afternoon, and bring these miniatures with me.

She seemed a languid woman, much ennuyee, and
evidently without a large circle of acquaintance. She
told me I was the only person in the whole park whom
she had bowed to that day. Her husband was in
Hamburg, and she was going to meet him in Paris in a
day or two.

I had not so many friends but what I felt rather glad
than otherwise to have met her, and willingly called, as I
had promised, with the portraits.

She lived in a large, new house, magnificently up¬
holstered, near the Marble Arch. She was quite alone
when I called, and asked me immediately if I had brought
the miniatures ; and looked at them quite eagerly, and
then at me, and exclaimed —

“ Good heavens, you are your father’s very image ! ”

Indeed, I had always been considered so.

Both his eyebrows and mine, especially, met in a
singular and characteristic fashion at the bridge of the
nose, and she seemed much struck by this. He was

PETER IB BETS ON

231

represented in the uniform of Charles X.’s gardes du corps ,
in which he had served for two years, and had acquired
the nickname of “ le beau Pasquier.” Mrs. Deane seemed
never to tire of gazing at it, and remarked that my father
“ must have been the very ideal of a young girl’s dream ”
(an indirect compliment which made me blush after what
she had just said of the likeness between us. I almost
began to wonder whether she was going to try and make
a fool of me again, as she had so successfully done a few
years ago).

Then she became interested again in my early life
and recollections, and wanted to know whether my
parents were fond of each other. They were a most
devoted and lover-like pair, and had loved each other at
first sight and until death, and I told her so ; and so on
until I became quite excited, and imagined she must
know of some good fortune to which I was entitled,
and had been kept out of by the machinations of a wicked
uncle.

For I had long discovered in my dreams that he
had been my father’s bitterest enemy and the main
cause of his financial ruin, by selfish, heartless, and dis¬
honest deeds too complicated to explain here — a regular
Shylock.

I had found this out by listening (in my dreams) to
long conversations between my father and mothei in
the old drawing-room at Passy, while Gogo was absorbed
in his book ; and every word that had passed through
Gogo’s inattentive ears into his otherwise pieoccupied little
brain had been recorded there as in a phonograph, and
was now repeated over and over again for Peter Ibbetson,
as he sat unnoticed among them.

PETER IB BETS ON

I asked her, jokingly, if she had discovered that I was
the rightful heir to Ibbetson Hall by any chance.

She replied that nothing would give her greater
pleasure, but there was no such good fortune in store for
either her or me ; that she had discovered long ago that
Colonel Ibbetson was the greatest blackguard unhung, and
nothing new she might discover could make him worse.

I then remembered how he would often speak of her,
even to me, and hint and insinuate things which were no
doubt untrue, and which I disbelieved. Not that the
question of their truth or untruth made him any the less
despicable and vile for telling.

She asked me if he had ever spoken of her to me, and
after much persuasion and cunning cross-examination I
told her as much of the truth as I dared, and she became
a tigress. She assured me that he had managed so to
injure and compromise her in Hopshire that she and her
mother had to leave, and she swore to me most solemnly
(and I thoroughly believe she spoke the truth) that there
had never been any relation between them that she could
not have owned to before the whole world.

She had wished to marry him, it is true, for his wealth
and position ; for both she and her mother were very poor,
and often hard put to it to make both ends meet and keep
up a decent appearance before the world ; and he had
singled her out and paid her marked attention from the
first, and given her every reason to believe that his atten¬
tions were serious and honourable.

At this juncture her mother came in, Mrs. Glyn, and
we renewed our old acquaintance. She had quite forgiven
me my schoolboy admiration for her daughter ; all her
power of hating, like her daughter’s, had concentrated itself

PETER IB BETS ON

233

on Ibbetson ; and as I listened to the long story of their
wrongs and his infamy, I grew to hate him worse than
ever, and was ready to be their champion on the spot, and
to take up their quarrel there and then.

But this would not do, it appeared, for their name
must nevermore be in any way mixed up with his.

Then suddenly Mrs. Glyn asked me if I knew when
he went to India.

I could satisfy her, for I knew that it was just after
my parents’ marriage, nearly a year before my birth ; upon
which she gave the exact date of his departure with his
regiment, and the name of the transport, and everything ;
and also, to my surprise, the date of my parents’ marriage
at Marylebone Church, and of my baptism there fifteen
months later — just fourteen weeks after my birth in Passy.
I was growing quite bewildered with all this knowledge of
my affairs, and wondered more and more.

We sat silent for a while, the twro women looking at
each other and at me and at the miniatures. It was
getting gruesome. What could it all mean ?

Presently Mrs. Glyn, at a nod from her daughter,
addressed me thus —

“Mr. Ibbetson, your uncle, as you call him, though he
is not your uncle, is a very terrible villain, and has done
you and your parents a very foul wrong. Before I tell
you what it is (and I think you ought to know) you must
give me your word of honour that you will do or say nothing
that will get our name publicly mixed up in any wray with
Colonel Ibbetson’s. The injury to my daughter, now she is
happily married to an excellent man, would be irreparable.”

With a beating heart I solemnly gave the required

assurance.

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PETER IB BETS ON

“ Then, Mr. Ibbetson, it is right that you should know
that Colonel Ibbetson, when he was paying his infamous
addresses to my daughter, gave her unmistakably to under¬
stand that you were his natural son, by his cousin, Miss
Catharine Biddulph, afterward Madame Pasquier de la
Mari ere ! ”

“Oh, oh, oh!” I cried, “surely you must be mistaken
— he knew it was impossible — he had been refused by my
mother three times — he went to India nearly a year before
I was born — he - ”

Then Mrs. Deane said, producing an old letter from
her pocket —

“Do you know his handwriting and his crest ? Do
you happen to recollect once bringing me a note from him
at Ibbetson Hall ? Here it is,” and she handed it to me.
It was unmistakably his, and I remembered it at once,
and this is what it said —

“ For Heaven’s sake, dear friend, don’t breathe a word
to any living soul of what you were clever enough to guess
last night ! There is a likeness, of course.

“ Poor Antinolis ! He is quite ignorant of the true
relationship, which has caused me many a pang of shame
and remorse. . . .

“ ‘ Oue voulez-vous ? Elle etait ravissante !’ . . . We
were cousins, much thrown together ; ‘ both were so young,
and one so beautiful ! ’ . . . I was but a penniless cornet
in those days— hardly more than a boy. Happily an
unsuspecting Frenchman of good family was there who
had loved her long, and she married him. ‘ II etait
temps!’ . . .

“ Can you forgive me this ‘ entrainement de jeunesse ’?

PETER IB BETS ON

235

I have repented in sackcloth and ashes, and made what
reparation I could by adopting and giving my name to
one who is a perpetual reminder to me of a moment’s
infatuation. He little knows, poor boy, and never will, I
hope. ‘ II n’a plus que moi au monde !’

“ Burn this as soon as you have read it, and never let
the subject be mentioned between us again.

“ R. (‘ Oui sait aimer ’).”

Here was a thunderbolt out of the blue !

I sat stunned and saw scarlet, and felt as if I should
see scarlet for ever.

After a long silence, during which I could feel my
pulse beat to bursting point in my temples, Mrs. Glyn
said —

“ Now, Mr. Ibbetson, I hope you will do nothing rash
— nothing that can bring my daughter’s name into any
quarrel between yourself and your uncle. For the sake
of your mother’s good name, you will be prudent, I know.
If he could speak like this of his cousin, with whom he
had been in love when he was young, what lies would he
not tell of my poor daughter? He has — terrible lies!
Oh, what we have suffered ! When he wrote that letter
I believe he really meant to marry her. He had the
greatest trust in her, or he would never have committed
himself so foolishly.”

“ Does he know of this letter’s existing ? ” I asked.

“ No. When he and my daughter quarrelled she sent
him back his letters — all but this one, which she told him
she had burned immediately after reading it, as he had
told her to do.”

“ May I keep it ?”

236

PETER IB BETS ON

“ Yes. I know you may be trusted, and my daughter’s
name has been removed from the outside, as you see. No
one but ourselves has ever seen it, nor have we mentioned
to a soul what it contains, as we never believed it for a
moment. Two or three years ago we had the curiosity

THE FATAL LETTER.

to find out when and where your parents had married,
and when you were born, and when he went to India. It
was no surprise to us at all. We then tried to find you,
but soon gave it up, and thought it better to leave matters
alone. Then we heard he was in mischief again — just
the same sort of mischief ; and then my daughter saw you
in the park, and we concluded you ought to know.”

PETER IB BETS ON

237

Such was the gist of that memorable conversation,
which I have condensed as much as I could.

When I left these two ladies I walked twice rapidly
round the park. I saw scarlet often during that walk.
Perhaps I looked scarlet. I remember people staring at
me.

Then I went straight to Lintot’s, with the impulse to
tell him my trouble and ask his advice.

He was away from home, and I waited in his smoking-
room for a while, reading the letter over and over again.

Then I decided not to tell him, and left the house,
taking with me as I did so (but without any definite
purpose) a heavy loaded stick, a most formidable weapon,
even in the hands of a boy, and which I myself had given
to Lintot on his last birthday. ’A vdyicr) !

Then I went to my usual eating-house near the circus
and dined. To the surprise of the waiting-maid, I drank
a quart of bitter ale and two glasses of sherry. It was
my custom to drink water. She plied me with questions
as to whether I was ill or in trouble. I answered her no,
and at last begged she would leave me alone.

Ibbetson lived in St. James’s Street. I went there.
He was out. It was nine o’clock, and his servant seemed
uncertain when he would return. I came back at ten.
He was not yet home, and the servant, after thinking a
while, and looking up and down the street, and finding
my appearance decent and by no means dangerous, asked
me to go upstairs and wait, as I told him it was a matter
of great importance.

So I went and sat in my uncle’s drawing-room and
waited.

The servant came with me and lit the candles, and

238

PETER IB BETS ON

remarked on the weather, and handed me the Saturday
Review and Punch. I must have looked quite natural—
as I tried to look— and he left me.

I saw a Malay creese on the mantelpiece and hid it
behind a picture - frame. 1 locked a door leading to
another drawing-room where there was a grand piano,
and above it a trophy of swords, daggers, battle-axes, etc.,
and put the key in my pocket.

The key of the room where I waited was inside the
door.

All this time I had a vague idea of possible violence
on his part, but no idea of killing him. I felt far too
strong for that. Indeed, I had a feeling of quiet,
irresistible strength — the result of suppressed excite¬
ment.

I sat down and meditated all I would say. I had
settled it over and over again, and read and re-read the
fatal letter.

The servant came up with glasses and soda - water.
I trembled lest he should observe that the door to the
other room was locked, but he did not. He opened the
window and looked up and down the street. Presently
he said, “ Here’s the colonel at last, sir,” and went down
to open the door.

I heard him come in and speak to his servant. Then
he came straight up, humming “la donna e mobile ,” and
walked in with just the jaunty, airy manner I remembered.
He was in evening dress, and very little changed. He
seemed much surprised to see me, and turned very white.

“ Well, my Apollo of the T square, pourquoi cet
honneur ? Have you come, like a dutiful nephew, to
humble yourself and beg for forgiveness ? ”

PETER IP BETS ON

39

I forgot all I meant to say (indeed, nothing happened
as I had meant), but rose and said, “ I have come to have
a talk with you,” as quietly as I could, though with a
thick voice.

He seemed uneasy, and went toward the door.

I eot there before him, and closed it, and locked it,

o

and put the key in my pocket.

He darted to the other door and found it locked.

Then he went to the mantelpiece and looked for the
creese, and not finding it, he turned round with his back
to the fireplace and his arms akimbo, and tried to look
very contemptuous and determined. His chin was quite
white under his dyed mustache — like wax — and his eyes
blinked nervously.

I walked up to him and said —

“ You told Mrs. Deane that I was your natural son.”

“ It’s a lie ! Who told you so? ”

II She did — this afternoon.”

“ it’s a lie — a spiteful invention of a cast-off mistress!”

“ She never was your mistress ! ”

“ You fool ! I suppose she told you that too. Leave
the room, you pitiful green jackass, or I’ll have you turned
out,” and he rang the bell.

“ Do you know your own handwriting ? I said, and
handed him the letter.

He read a line or two and gasped out that it was
a forgery, and rang the bell again, and looked again
behind the clock for his creese. Then he lit the letter
at a candle and threw it in the fireplace, where it blazed

out.

I made no attempt to prevent him.

The servant tried to open the door, and Ibbetson

240

PETER I BEETS ON

went to the window and called out for the police. I
rushed to the picture where I had hidden the creese, and
threw it on the table. Then I swung him away from
the window by his coat - tails, ^and told him to defend
himself, pointing to the creese.

He seized it, and stood on the defensive ; the servant
had apparently run downstairs for assistance.

BASTARD ! PARRICIDE !

“Now, then,” I said, “down on your knees, you
infamous cur, and confess ; it’s your only chance.”

“ Confess what, you fool ? ”

“ That you’re a coward and a liar ; that you wrote
that letter ; that Mrs. Deane was no more your mistress
than my mother was ! ”

There was a sound of people running upstairs. He
listened a moment and hissed out —

PETER IB BETS ON

241

“ They both were, you idiot ! How can I tell for
certain whether you are my son or not? It all comes to
the same. Of course I wrote the letter. Come on, you
cowardly assassin, you bastard parricide ! ” . . . and he
advanced on me with his creese low down in his right
hand, the point upward, and made a thrust, shrieking out,
“ Break open the door ! quick ! ” They did ; but too
late 1

I saw crimson 1

He missed me, and I brought down my stick on his
left arm, which he held over his head, and then on his
head, and he fell crying —

“ O my God ! O Christ 1 ”

I struck him again on his head as he was falling, and
once again when he was on the ground. It seemed to
crash right in.

That is why and how I killed Uncle Ibbetson.

R

part jfiTtlj

ROUILLE, greve, greve, grouille,
File, file, ma quenouille !

File sa corde au bourreau
Qui siffle dans le preau. . . .

So sang the old hag in
Notre Dame de Paris !

So sang to me night
and day, for many nights
and days, the thin small
voice that always went
piping inside me, now to
one tune, now to another,
but always the same words— that terrible refrain that
used to haunt me so when I was a schoolboy at Blue-

friars !

Oh to be a schoolboy again in a long gray coat and
ridiculous pink stockings — innocent and free — with Es¬
meralda for my only love, and Athos and Porthos and
D’Artagnan for my bosom friends, and no worse tribula¬
tion than to be told on a Saturday afternoon that the
third volume was in hand — volume trois est en lecture !

PETER IB BETS ON

243

Sometimes, I remember, I could hardly sleep on a
Sunday night, for pity of the poor wretch who was to be
hanged close by on the Monday morning, and it has come
to that with me !

O Mary, Mary, Duchess of Towers, sweet friend of my
childhood, and love of my life, what must you think of me
now ?

How blessed are the faithful ! How good it must
be to trust in God and heaven, and the forgiveness of
sin, and be as a little child in all but innocence ! A
whole career of crime wiped out in a moment by just
one cheap little mental act of faith at the eleventh hour,
in the extreme terror of well-merited dissolution ; and
all the evil one has worked through life (that goes on
breeding evil for ages to come) taken off one’s shoulders
like a filthy garment, and just cast aside, anywhere, anyhow,
for the infecting of others — who do not count.

What matter if it be a fool’s paradise ? Paradise is
paradise, for whoever owns it !

They say a Sicilian drum-major, during the French
occupation of Palermo, was sentenced to be shot. He was
a well-known coward, and it was feared he would disgrace
his country at the last moment in the presence of the
French soldiers, who had a way of being shot with a good
grace and a light heart : they had grown accustomed to it.

For the honour of Sicily his confessor told him, in
the strictest confidence, that his sentence was a mock
one, and that he would be fired at with blank cartridges.

244

PETER IB BETS ON

It was a pious fraud. All but two of the twelve
cartridges had bullets, and he fell, riddled through and
through. No Frenchman ever died with a lighter heart,
a better grace. He was superb, and the national honour
was saved.

Thrice happy Sicilian drum-major, if the story be true 1
That trust in blank cartridges was his paradise.

Oh it is uphill work to be a stoic when the moment
comes and the tug ! But when the tug lasts for more than
a moment — days and nights, days and nights ! O happy
Sicilian drum-major !

Pray? Yes, I will pray night and morning, and all
day long, to whatever there is left of inherited strength
and courage in that luckless, misbegotten waif, Peter
Ibbetson ; that it may bear him up a little while yet ;
that he may not disgrace himself in the dock or on the
gallows.

Repent? Yes, of many things. But of the thing for
which I am here ? Never !

It is a ghastly thing to be judge and jury and execu¬
tioner all in one, and for a private and personal wrong
— to condemn, and strike, and kill.

Pity comes after— when it is too late, fortunately — the
wretched weakness of pity ! Pooh ! no Calcraft will ever
pity me, and I do not want him to.

He had his long, snaky knife against my stick ; he, too,
was a big strong man, well skilled in self-defence ! Down

PETER IB RE TSON

245

he went, and I struck him again and again. “ O my
God ! O Christ ! ” he shrieked. . . .

It will ring in my heart and my ears till I die— till I

die !

There was no time to lose — no time to think for the
best. It is all for the best as it is. What might he not
have said if he had lived !

Thank Heaven, pity is not remorse or shame ; and
what crime could well be worse than his? To rob ones
dearly beloved dead of their fair fame !

He might have been mad, perhaps, and have grown in
time to believe the lies he told himself. Such things have
been. But such a madman should no more be suffered
to live than a mad dog. The only way to kill the lie
was to kill the liar — that is, if one can ever kill a lie !

Poor worm ! after all, he could not help it, I suppose !
he was built like that ! and / was built to kill him for it,
and be hanged ! ’A vaster) !

What an exit for “ Gogo — gentil petit Gogo ” !

Just opposite that wall, on the other side, was once a
small tripe and trotter shop, kept by a most lovely daughter
of the people, so fair and good in my eyes that I would
have asked her to be my wife. What would she think of
me now ? That I should have dared to aspire ! What a
King Cophetua !

What does everybody think ? I can never breathe the

246

PETER IB BETS ON

real cause to a soul. Only two women know the truth,
and they will take good care not to tell. Thank Heaven for
that !

What matters what anybody thinks? “ It will be all
the same a hundred years hence.” That is the most
sensible proverb ever invented.

But meanwhile !

The judge puts on the black cap, and it is all for you !
Every eye is fixed on you, so big and young and strong
and full of life ! Ugh !

They pinion you, and you have to walk and be a man,
and the chaplain exhorts and prays and tries to comfort.
Then a sea of faces ; people opposite, who have been
eating and drinking and making merry, waiting for you !
A cap is pulled over your eyes — O horror ! horror !
horror !

“ Heureux tambour-major de Sicile ! ”

“ II faut laver son linge sale en famille, et c’est ce que
j’ai fait. Mais 5a va me couter cher ! ”

Would I do it all over again ? Oh, let me hope,

yes !

Ah, he died too quick ; I dealt him those four blows
in less than as many seconds. It was five minutes, perhaps
or, at the most, ten — from the moment he came into

PETER IB BETS ON

247

the room to that when I finished him and was caught red-
handed. And I — what a long agony !

Oh that I might once more dream a “ true dream,” and
see my dear people once more ! But it seems that I have
lost the power of dreaming true since that fatal night. I
try and try, but it will not come. My dreams are dread¬
ful ; and, oh, the waking !

After all, my life hitherto, but for a few happy years
of childhood, has not been worth living ; it is most un¬
likely that it ever would have been, had I lived to a hundred !
O Mary ! Mary !

And penal servitude! Better any death than that.
It is good that my secret must die with me — that there
will be no extenuating circumstances, no recommendation
to mercy, no commutation of the swift penalty of death.

“ File, file . . .

File sa corde au bourreau !”

By such monotonous thoughts, and others as dreary
and hopeless, recurring again and again in the same dull
round, I beguiled the terrible time that intervened between
Ibbetson’s death and my trial at the Old Bailey.

It all seems very trivial and unimportant now — not
worth recording — even hard to remember.

But at the time my misery was so great, my terror of
the gallows so poignant, that each day I thought I must
die of sheer grief before another twenty-four hours could
possibly pass over me.

248

PETER IB BETS ON

The intolerable strain would grow more and more
severe till a climax of tension was reached, and a
hysterical burst of tears would relieve me for a while,
and I would feel reconciled to my fate, and able to face
death like a man. . . . Then the anguish would gradually
steal over me again, and the uncontrollable weakness ot
the flesh. . . .

And each of these two opposite moods, while it lasted,
made the other seem impossible, and as if it never could
come back again ; yet back it came with the regularity of
a tide — the most harrowing seesaw that ever was.

I had always been unstable like that ; but whereas I
had hitherto oscillated between high elation and despond¬
ency, it was now from a dumb, resigned despair to the
wildest agony and terror.

I sought in vain for the only comfort it was in me to
seek ; but when, overdone with suffering, I fell asleep at
last, I could no longer dream true ; I could dream only
as other wretches dream.

I always dreamed those two little dancing, deformed
jailers, man and wife, had got me at last; and that I
shrieked aloud for my beloved duchess to succour me, as
they ran me in, each butting at me sideways, and showing
their toothless gums in a black smile, and poisoning me
with their hot sour breath ! The gate was there, and the
avenue, all distorted and quite unlike; and, opposite, a jail;
but no powerful Duchess of Towers to wave the horror away.

It will be remembered by some, perhaps, how short
was my trial.

The plea of “ not guilty ” was entered for me. The
defence set up was insanity, based on the absence of any

PETER IB BETS ON

249

adequate motive. This defence was soon disposed of by
the prosecution ; witnesses to my sanity were not wanting,
and motives enough were found in my past relations with
Colonel Ibbetson to “ make me — a violent, morose, and
vindictive -natured man — imbrue my hands in the gore
of my relative and benefactor — a man old enough to
be my father— who, indeed, might have been my father,
for the love he had bestowed upon me, with his honoured
name, when I was left a penniless, foreign orphan on his
hands.”

Here I laughed loud and long, and made a most
painful impression, as is duly recorded in the reports ot
the trial.

The jury found me guilty quite early in the afternoon
of the second day, without leaving the box ; and I, “ pre¬
serving to the last the callous and unmoved demeanour I
had borne all through the trial,” was duly sentenced to
death without any hope of mercy, but with an expression
of regret on the part of the judge — a famous hanging
judge — that a man of my education and promise should
be brought by his own evil nature and uncontrollable
passions to so deplorable an end.

Now whether the worst of certainties is better than
suspense — whether my nerves of pain had been so
exercised during the period preceding my trial that I had
really become callous, as they say a man’s back does after
a certain number of strokes from the “ cat ” — certain it
was that I knew the worst, and acquiesced in it with a
surprised sense of actual relief, and found it in me to feel
it not unbearable.

Such, at least, was my mood that night. I made the

250

PETER IB BETS ON

most of it. It was almost happiness by comparison with
what I had gone through. I remember eating with a
heartiness that surprised me. I could have gone straight
from my dinner to the gallows, and died with a light
heart and a good grace — like a Sicilian drum-major.

I resolved to write the whole true story to the
Duchess of Towers, with an avowal of my long and
hopeless adoration for her, and the expression of a hope
that she would try to think of me only as her old play¬
fellow, and as she had known me before this terrible
disaster. And thinking of the letter I would write till
very late, I fell asleep in my cell, with two warders to
watch over me ; and then — Another phase of my inner
life began.

Without effort, without let or hindrance of any kind,
I was at the avenue gate.

The pink and white may, the lilacs and laburnums
were in full bloom, the sun made golden paths everywhere.
The warm air was full of fragrance, and alive with all the
buzz and chirp of early summer.

I was half crying with joy to reach the land of my
true dreams again, to feel at home once more — chez moi !
ches moi !

La Mere Francois sat peeling potatoes at the door of
her loge ; she was singing a little song about cinq sous ,
cinq sous, pour monter notre menage. I had forgotten it,
but it all came back now.

The facetious postman, Yverdon, went in at the gate
of my old garden ; the bell rang as he pushed it, and I
followed him.

Under the apple-tree, which was putting forth shoots

PETER IB BETS ON

251

of blossom in profusion, sat my mother and father and
Monsieur le Major. My mother took the letter from the
postman’s hand as he said, “ Pour vous ? Oh yes,
Madame Pasquier, God sev ze Kveen ! ” and paid the
postage. It was from Colonel Ibbetson, then in Ireland,
and not yet a colonel.

CINQ SOUS, CINQ SOUS, POUR MONTER NOTRE MENAGE.

Medor lay snoring on the grass, and Gogo and
Mimsey were looking at the pictures in the musee des
families.

In a garden chair lolled Dr. Seraskier, apparently
asleep, with his long porcelain pipe across his knees.

Madame Seraskier, in a yellow nankeen gown with
gigot sleeves, was cutting curl-papers out of the Constitu-
tionnel.

I gazed on them all with unutterable tenderness. I
was gazing on them perhaps for the last time.

252

PETER IB BETS ON

I called out to them by name.

“ Oh speak to me, beloved shades ! 0 my father ! 0

mother, I want you so desperately ! Come out of the
past for a few seconds, and give me some words of
comfort! I’m in such woful plight! If you could only
know. . . .”

But they could neither hear nor see me.

Then suddenly another figure stepped forth from
behind the apple-tree — no old-fashioned unsubstantial
shadow of bygone days that one can only see and hear,
and that cannot hear and see one back again ; but one in
all the splendid fulness of life, a pillar of help and strength
— Mary, Duchess of Towers !

I fell on my knees as she came to me with both hands
extended.

“ Oh, Mr. Ibbetson, I have been seeking and waiting
for you here night after night ! I have been frantic !
If you hadn’t come at last, I must have thrown every¬
thing to the winds, and gone to see you in Newgate,

waking and before the world, to have a talk with you _

an abboccamento. I suppose you couldn't sleep, or were
unable to dream.”

I could not answer at first. I could only cover her
hands with kisses, as I felt her warm life-current mixing
with mine — a rapture !

And then I said—

“ I swear to you by all I hold most sacred — by my
mother’s memory and yours — by yourself — that I never
meant to take Ibbetson’s life, or even strike him ; the
miserable blow was dealt . . .”

“ As if y°u need tell me that ! As if I didn’t know
you of old, my poor friend, kindest and gentlest of men !

BELOVED SHADES.

254

PETER IB BETS ON

Why, I am holding your hands, and see into the very
depths of your heart ! ”

(I put down all she said as she said it. Of course I
am not, and never have been, what her old affectionate
regard made me seem in her eyes, any more than I am
the bloodthirsty monster I passed for. Woman-like, she
was the slave of her predilections.)

“ And now, Mr. Ibbetson,” she went on, “ let me first
of all tell you, for a certainty, that the sentence will be
commuted. I saw the Home Secretary three or four
hours ago. The real cause of your deplorable quarrel
with your uncle is an open secret. His character is well
known. A Mrs. Gregory (whom you knew in Hopshire
as Mrs. Deane) has been with the Home Secretary this
afternoon. Your chivalrous reticence at the trial . .

“ Oh,” I interrupted, “ I don’t care to live any longer !
Now that I have met you once more, and that you have
forgiven me and think well of me in spite of everything, I
am ready to die. There has never been anybody but you
in the world for me — never a ghost of a woman, never
even a friend since my mother died and yours. Between
that time and the night I first saw you at Lady Cray’s
concert, I can scarcely be said to have lived at all. I fed
on scraps of remembrance. You see I have no talent for
making new friends, but oh, such a genius for fidelity to
old ones ! I was waiting for Mimsey to come back
again, I suppose, the one survivor to me of that sweet
time, and when she came at last I was too stupid to
recognise her. She suddenly blazed and dazzled into my
poor life like a meteor, and filled it with a maddening
love and pain. I don’t know which of the two has been
the sweetest; both have been my life. You cannot

PETER IB BETS ON

255

realise what it has been. Trust me, I have lived my fill.

I am ready and willing to die. It is the only perfect
consummation I can think of. Nothing can ever equal
this moment — nothing on earth or in heaven. And if I
were free to-morrow, life would not be worth having with¬
out you. I would not take it as a gift.”

She sat down by me on the grass with her hands
clasped across her knees, close to the unconscious shadows
of our kith and kin, within hearing of their happy talk
and laughter.

Suddenly we both heard Mimsey say to Gogo —

“ O, ils sont joliment bien ensemble, le Prince Char-
mant et la fee Tarapatapoum ! ”

We looked at each other and actually laughed aloud.
The duchess said —

“ Was there ever, since the world began, such a mise en
scene , and for such a meeting, Mr. Ibbetson ? Think of
it ! Conceive it ! / arranged it all. I chose a day when
they were all together. As they would say in America, I
am the boss of this particular dream.”

And she laughed again, through her tears, that en¬
chanting ripple of a laugh that closed her eyes and made
her so irresistible.

“ Was there ever,” said I — “ ever since the world be¬
gan, such ecstasy as I feel now ? After this what can
there be for me but death — well earned and well paid for ?
Welcome and lovely Death ! ”

“ You have not yet thought, Mr. Ibbetson — you have
not realised what life may have in store for you if — if all
you have said about your affection for me is true. Oh, it
is too terrible for me to think of, I know, that you, scarcely
more than a boy, should have to spend the rest of your life in

256

PETER IB BETS ON

miserable confinement and unprofitable monotonous toil.
But there is another ' side to that picture.

“ Now listen to your old friend’s story — poor little
Mimsey’s confession. I will make it as short as I can.

“ Do you remember when you first saw me, a sickly,
plain, sad little girl, at the avenue gate, twenty years ago ?

“ Le Pere Francois was killing a fowl — cutting its
throat with a clasp-knife — and the poor thing struggled
frantically in his grasp as its blood flowed into the gutter.
A group of boys were looking on in great glee, and all
the while Pere Francois was gossiping with M. le Cure,
who didn’t seem to mind in the least. I was fainting with
pity and horror. Suddenly you came out of the school
opposite with Alfred and Charlie Plunket, and saw it all,
and in a fit of noble rage you called Pere Francois a ‘ sacred
pig of assassin’ — which, as you know is very rude in French
— and struck him as near his face as you could reach.

“ Have you forgotten that ? Ah, I haven’t ! It was
not an effectual deed, perhaps, and certainly came too late
to save the fowl. Besides, Pere Francois struck you back
again, and left some of the fowl’s blood on your cheek.

It was a baptism! You became on the spot my hero _

my angel of light. Look at Gogo over there. Is he
beautiful enough ? That was you , Mr. Ibbetson.

“M. le Cure said something about ‘ ces Anglais ’ who
go mad if a man whips his horse, and yet pay people to
box each other to death. Don’t you really remember ?
Oh, the recollection to me !

“ And that little language we invented and used to
talk so fluently ! Don’t you rappel it to yourself? ‘ Ne
le re'collectes tu pas ? ’ as we would have said in those days,
for it used to be thee and thou with us then.

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“ Well, at all events, you must remember how for five
happy years we were so often together ; how you drew for
me, read to me, played with me ; took my part in every¬
thing, right or wrong ; carried me pickaback when I was
tired. Your drawings— I have them all. And oh, you
were so funny sometimes ! How you used to make
mamma laugh, and M. le Major ! Just look at Gogo
again. Have you forgotten what he is doing now ? I
haven’t. ... He has just changed the musee des families
for the Penny Magazine , and is explaining Hogarth’s
pictures of the 1 Idle and Industrious Apprentices ’ to
Mimsey, and they are both agreed that the idle one is
much the less objectionable of the two.

“ Mimsey looks passive enough, with her thumb in her
mouth, doesn’t she ? Her little heart is so full of grati¬
tude and love for Gogo that she can’t speak. She can
only suck her thumb. Poor, sick, ungainly child ! She
would like to be Gogo’s slave — she would die for Gogo.
And her mother adores Gogo too ; she is almost jealous
of dear Madame Pasquier for having so sweet a son. In
just one minute from now, when she has cut that last curl¬
paper, poor long-dead mamma will call Gogo to her and
give him a good ‘ Irish hug,’ and make him happy for a
week. Wait a minute and see. There ! What did I tell
you ?

“ Well, all that came to an end. Madame Pasquier
went away and never came back, and so did Gogo. Mon¬
sieur and Madame Pasquier were dead, and dear mamma
died in a week from the cholera. Poor heart-broken
Mimsey was taken away to St. Petersburg, Warsaw,
Leipsic, Venice, all over Europe, by her father, as heart¬
broken as herself.

S

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“It was her wish and her father’s that she should be¬
come a pianist by profession, and she studied hard for
many years in almost every capital, and under almost
every master in Europe, and she gave promise of success.

“ And so, wandering from one place to another, she
became a young woman — a greatly petted and spoiled
and made-much-of young woman, Mr. Ibbetson, although
she says it who shouldn’t ; and had many suitors of all
kinds and countries.

“ But the heroic and angelic Gogo, with his lovely
straight nose, and his hair aux enfants d' Edouard, and his
dear little white silk chimney-pot hat and Eton jacket,
was always enshrined in her memory, in her inmost heart,
as the incarnation of all that was beautiful and brave and
good. But alas ! what had become of this Gogo in the
meantime ? Ah, he was never even heard of — he was
dead !

“Well, this long-legged, tender-hearted, grown-up
young Mimsey of nineteen was attracted by a very witty
and accomplished English attache at Vienna — a Mr. Har-
court, who seemed deeply in love with her, and wished her
to be his wife.

“ He was not rich, but Dr. Seraskier liked and trusted
him so much that he dispossessed himself of almost every¬
thing he had to enable this young couple to marry — and
they did. And truth compels me to admit that for a year
they were very happy and contented with fate and each
other.

“ Then a great misfortune befell them both. In a
most unexpected manner, through four or five consecutive
deaths in Mr. Harcourt’s family, he became, first, Lord
Harcourt, and then the Duke of Towers. And since

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259

then, Mr. Ibbetson, I have not had an hour’s peace or
happiness.

“ I’1 first place a son was born to me — a cripple,
poor dear ! and deformed from his birth ; and as he grew
older it soon became evident that he was also born without
a mind.

" Then my unfortunate husband changed completely ;
he drank and gambled and worse, till we came to live
together as strangers, and only spoke to each other in
public and before the world. . . .”

“Ah,” I said, “you were still a great lady — an
English duchess ! ’

I could not endure the thought of that happy twelve-
month with that bestial duke ! I, sober, chaste, and clean
— of all but blood, alas ! and a condemned convict !

“ Oh, Mr. Ibbetson, you must make no mistake about
me ! I was never intended by nature for a duchess —
especially an English one. Not but what, if dukes and
duchesses are necessary, the English are the best — and,
of course, by dukes and duchesses I mean all that upper-
ten-thousand in England which calls itself ‘ society ’ — as
if there were no other worth speaking of. Some of them
are almost angelic, but they are not for outsiders like me.
Perpetual hunting and shooting and fishing and horse¬
racing — eating, drinking, and killing, and making love —
eternal court gossip and tittle-tattle — the Prince — the
Queen — whom and what the Queen likes, whom and what
she doesn’t ! — tame English party politics — the Church —
a Church that doesn’t know its own mind, in spite of its
deans, bishops, archbishops, and their wives and daughters
— -and all their silly, solemn sense of social rank and
dignity ! Endless small-talk, dinners, and drums, and no

26o

PETER IP BETS ON

society from year’s end to year’s end but each other !
Ah, one must be caught young, and put in harness early,
to lead such an existence as that and be content ! And
I had met and known such men and women with my
father ! They were something to know !

“ There is another society in London and elsewhere —
a freemasonry of intellect and culture and hard work — la
haute boheme du talent — men and women whose names are
or ought to be household words all over the world ; many
of them are good friends of mine, both here and abroad ;
and that society, which was good enough for my father
and mother, is quite good enough for me.

“ I am a republican, Mr. Ibbetson — a cosmopolite — a
born Bohemian !

‘ Mon grand-pere etait rossignol ;

Ma grand-mere etait hirondelle ! 1

“ Look at my dear people there — look at your dear
people ! What waifs and strays, until their ship comes
home, which we know it never will ! Our fathers for ever
racking their five wits in the pursuit of an idea ! Our
mothers for ever racking theirs to save money and make
both ends meet ! . . . Why, Mr. Ibbetson, you are nearer
to the rossignol than I am. Do you remember your
father’s voice ? Shall I ever forget it ! He sang to me
only last night, and in the midst of my harrowing anxiety
about you I was beguiled into listening outside the window.
He sang Rossini’s ‘ Cujus An imam l He was the nightin¬
gale ; that was his vocation, if he could but have known
it. And you are my brother Bohemian ; that is yours !
. . . Ah, my vocation ! It was to be the wife of some
busy brain-worker — man of science — conspirator _ writer

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261

— artist — architect, if you like ; to fence him round and
shield him from all the little worries and troubles and
petty vexations of life. I am a woman of business par
excellence — a manager, and all that. He would have had
a warm, well-ordered little nest to come home to after
hunting his idea !

“ Well, I thought myself the most unhappy woman
alive, and wrapped myself up in my affection for my
much-afflicted little son ; and as I held him to my breast,
and vainly tried to warm and mesmerise him into feeling
and intelligence, Gogo came back into my heart, and I
was for ever thinking, ‘ Oh, if I had a son like Gogo,
what a happy woman I should be ! ’ and pitied Madame
Pasquier for dying and leaving him so soon, for I had
just begun to dream true, and had seen Gogo and his
sweet mother once again.

“ And then one night — one never-to-be-forgotten night
— I went to Lady Cray’s concert, and saw you standing
in a corner by yourself ; and I thought, with a leap of my
heart, ‘ Why, that must be Gogo, grown dark, and with a
beard and mustache like a Frenchman ! ’ But alas, I
found that you were only a Mr. Ibbetson, Lady Cray’s
architect, whom she had asked to her house because he
was ‘ quite the handsomest young man she had ever
seen ! ’

“ You needn’t laugh. You looked very nice, I assure
you !

“ Well, Mr. Ibhefeoh, although you were not Gogo,
you became suddenly so interesting to me that I never
forgot you — you were never quite out of my mind. I
wanted to counsel and advise you, and take you by the
hand, and be an elder sister to you, for I felt myself

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PETER IBBETSON

already older than you in the world and its ways. I
wanted to be twenty years older still, and to have you for

ECHOS DU TEMPS PASSE.

my son. I don’t know what I wanted ! You seemed so
lonely, and fresh, and unspotted from the world, amongst

PETER IB BETS ON

263

all those smart worldlings, and yet so big and strong and
square and invincible — oh, so strong! And then you
looked at me with such sincere and sweet and chivalrous
admiration and sympathy — there, I cannot speak of it —
and then you were so like what Gogo might have become !
Oh, you made as warm and devoted a friend of me at
first sight as any one might desire !

“ And at the same time you made me feel so self-
conscious and shy that I dared not ask to be introduced
to you — I, who scarcely know what shyness is.

“Dear Giulia Grisi sang ‘ Assisa al Pie d’ uri Salice’
and that tune has always been associated in my mind with
your image ever since, and always will be. Your dear
mother used to play it on the harp. Do you remember ?

“ Then came that extraordinary dream, which you
remember as well as I do: wasn’t it a wonder? You
see, my dear father had learned a strange secret of the
brain — how in sleep to recall past things and people and
places as they had once been seen or known by him —
even unremembered things. He called it ‘dreaming true,’
and by long practice, he told me, he had brought the art
of doing this to perfection. It was the one consolation of
his troubled life to go over and over again in sleep all his
happy youth and childhood, and the few short years he
had spent with his beloved young wife. And before he
died, when he saw I had become so unhappy that life
seemed to have no longer any possible hope or pleasure
for me, he taught me his very simple secret.

“ Thus have I revisited in sleep every place I have
ever lived in, and especially this, the beloved spot where I
first as a little girl knew you !

“ That night when we met again in our common

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PETER IB BETS ON

dream I was looking at the boys from Saindou’s school
going to their premiere communion, and thinking very
much of you, as I had seen you, when awake, a few hours
before, looking out of the window at the ‘ Tete Noire ’ ;
when you suddenly appeared in great seeming trouble
and walking like a tipsy man ; and my vision was dis¬
turbed by the shadow of a prison — alas ! alas !— and two
little jailers jingling their keys and trying to hem you in.

“ My emotion at seeing you again so soon was so
great that I nearly woke. But I rescued you from your
imaginary terrors and held you by the hand. You re¬
member all the rest.

“ I could not understand why you should be in my
dream, as I had almost always dreamed true — that is,
about things that had been in my life — not about things
that might be ; nor could I account for the solidity of
your hand, nor understand why you didn’t fade away when
I took it, and blur the dream. It was a most perplexing
mystery that troubled many hours of both my waking and
sleeping life. Then came that meeting with you at Cray,
and part of the mystery was accounted for, for you were
my old friend Gogo, after all. But it is still a mystery, an
awful mystery, that two people should meet as we are
meeting now in one and the same dream — should dove¬
tail so accurately into each other’s brains. What a link
between us two, Mr. Ibbetson, already linked by such
memories !

“ After meeting you at Cray I felt that I must never
meet you again, either waking or dreaming. The dis¬
covery that you were Gogo, after all, combined with the
preoccupation which as a mere stranger you had already
caused me for so long, created such a disturbance in my

PETER IB PETS ON

265

spirit that — -that — there, you must try and imagine it for
yourself.

“ Even before that revelation at Cray I had often
known you were here in my dream, and I had carefully
avoided you . . . though little dreaming you were here
in your own dream too ! Often from that little dormer-
window up there I have seen you wandering about the park
and avenue in seeming search of me, and wondered why
and how you came. You drove me into attics and servants’
bedrooms to conceal myself from you. It was quite a
game of hide-and-seek — cache-cache, as we used to call it !

“ But after our meeting at Cray I felt there must be
no more cache-cache ; I avoided coming here at all ; you
drove me away altogether.

“ Now try to imagine what I felt when the news of
your terrible quarrel with Mr. Ibbetson burst upon the
world. I was beside myself! I came here night after
night ; I looked for you everywhere — in the park, in the
Bois de Boulogne, at the Mare d’Auteuil, at St. Cloud —
in every place I could think of! And now here you are
at last — at last !

“ Hush ! Don’t speak yet ! I have soon done !

“ Six months ago I lost my poor little son, and, much
as I loved him, I cannot wish him back again. In a fort¬
night I shall be legally separated from my wretched
husband — I shall be quite alone in the world ! And then,
Mr. Ibbetson, oh, then, dearest friend that child or woman
ever had — every hour that I can steal from my waking
existence shall henceforward be devoted to you as long as
both of us live, and sleep the same hours out of the twenty-
four. My one object and endeavour shall be to make up
for the wreck of your sweet and valuable young life.

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PETER IB BETS ON

‘ Stone walls shall not a prison make, nor iron bars a
cage ! ’ [And here she laughed and cried together, so
that her eyes, closing up, squeezed out her tears, and I
thought, “ Oh that I might drink them ! ”].

“ And now I will leave you. I am a weak and loving
woman, and must not stay by your side till I can do so
without too much self-reproach.

“ And indeed I feel I shall soon fall awake from sheer
exhaustion of joy. Oh, selfish and jealous wretch that I
am, to talk of joy !

“ I cannot help rejoicing that no other woman can be
to you what I hope to be. No other woman can ever
come near you ! I am your tyrant and your slave — your
calamity has made you mine for ever ; but all my life —
all — all — shall be spent in trying to make you forget
yours, and I think I shall succeed.”

“ Oh, don’t make such dreadful haste ! ” I exclaimed.
“ Am I dreaming true ? What is to prove all this to me
when I wake ? Either I am the most abject and wretched
of men, or life will never have another unhappy moment.
How am I to knozv ? ”

“ Listen. Do you remember ‘ Parva sed Apta, le petit
pavilion,’ as you used to call it? That is still my home
when I am here. It shall be yours, if you like, when the
time comes. You will find much to interest you there.
Well, to-morrow early, in your cell, you will receive from
me an envelope with a slip of paper in it, containing some
violets, and the words ‘ Parva sed Apta — a bientot ’
written in violet ink. Will that convince you ? ”

“ Oh yes, yes ! ”

“ Well, then, give me your hands, dearest and best —
both hands ! I shall soon be here again, by this apple-

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267

tree ; I shall count the hours. Good-bye ! ” and she was
gone, and I woke.

I woke to the gaslit darkness of my cell. It was just
belore dawn. One of the warders asked me civilly if I
wanted anything, and gave me a drink of water.

I thanked him quietly, and recalled what had just
happened to me, with a wonder, an ecstasy, for which I
can find no words.

No, it had not been a dream — of that I felt quite sure
— not in any one single respect ; there had been nothing
of the dream about it except its transcendent, ineffable
enchantment.

Every inflection of that beloved voice, with its scarcely
perceptible foreign accent that I had never noticed before ;
every animated gesture, with its subtle reminiscence of
both her father and her mother ; her black dress trimmed
with gray ; her black and gray hat ; the scent of sandal¬
wood about her — all were more distinctly and vividly im¬
pressed upon me than if she had just been actually, and
in the flesh, at my bedside. Her tones still rang in my
ears. My eyes were full of her : now her profile, so pure
and chiselled ; now her full face, with her gray eyes (some¬
times tender and grave and wet with tears, sometimes
half closed in laughter) fixed on mine ; her lithe sweet
body curved forward, as she sat and clasped her knees ;
her arched and slender smooth straight feet so delicately
shod, that seemed now and then to beat time to her
story. . . .

And then that strange sense of the transfusion of life
at the touching of the hands ! Oh, it was no dream !
Though what it was I cannot tell. . . .

268

PETER IBBETSON

I turned on my side, happy beyond expression, and
fell asleep again — a dreamless sleep that lasted till I was
woke and told to dress.

MY EYES WERE FULL OF HER.

Some breakfast was brought to me, and with it an
envelope , open, which contained some violets, and a slip of
paper, scented with sandalwood , on which were written, in
violet ink, the words —

“ Parv a scd Apt a — a bientdt !

Tarapatapoum. ”

I \\ ill pass ovei the time that elapsed between my sen¬
tence and its commutation ; the ministrations and exhort-

PETER IB BETS ON

269

ations of the good chaplain ; the kind and touching fare¬
wells of Mr. and Mrs. Lintot, who had also believed that
I was Ibbetson’s son (I undeceived them) ; the visit of my
old friend Mrs. Deane . . . and her strange passion of
gratitude and admiration.

I have no doubt it would be all interesting enough, if
properly remembered and ably told. But it was all too
much like a dream — anybody’s dream — not a dream of
mine — all too slight and flimsy to have left an abiding
remembrance, or to matter much.

In due time I was removed to the jail at - , and

bade farewell to the world, and adapted myself to the con¬
ditions of my new outer life with a good grace and with a
very light heart.

The prison routine, leaving the brain so free and un¬
occupied ; the healthy labour, the pure air, the plain,
wholesome food — were delightful to me — a much needed
daily mental rest after the tumultuous emotions of each
night.

For I was soon back again in Passy, where I spent
every hour of my sleep, you may be sure, never very far
from the old apple-tree, which went through all its
changes, from bare bough to tender shoots and blossoms,
from blossom to ripe fruit, from fruit to yellow falling
leaf, and then to bare boughs again, and all in a few
peaceful nights, which were my days. I flatter myself by
this time that I know the habits of a French apple-tree,
and its caterpillars !

And all the dear people I loved, and of whom I could
never tire, were about — all but one. The One !

At last she arrived. The garden door was pushed, the
bell rang, and she came across the lawn, radiant, and tall,

270

PETER IBBETSON

and swift, and opened wide her arms. And there, with
our little world around us, all that we had ever loved and
cared for, but quite unseen and unheard by them — for the

SHE ARRIVED AT LAST.

first time in my life since my mother and Madame Seraskier
had died I held a woman in my arms, and she pressed
her lips to mine.

Round and round the lawn we walked and talked, as
we had often done fifteen, sixteen, twenty years ago.

PETER I BEETS ON

271

There were many things to say. “ The Charming Prince ”
and the “Fairy Tarapatapoum ” were “prettily well
together ” — at last !

The time sped quickly — far too quickly. I said —

“ You told me I should see your house — ‘ Parva sed
Apta ’ — that I should find much to interest me there. . . .”

She blushed a little and smiled, and said —

“ You mustn’t expect too much,” and we soon found
ourselves walking thither up the avenue. Thus we had
often walked as children, and once — a memorable once—
besides.

There stood the little white house with its golden
legend, as I had seen it a thousand times when a boy — a
hundred since.

How sweet and small it looked in the mellow sunshine !
We mounted the stone perron , and opened the door and
entered. My heart beat violently.

Everything was as it had always been, as far as I could
see. Dr. Seraskier sat in a chair by the window reading
Schiller, and took no notice of us. His hair moved in the
g-entle breeze. Overhead we heard the rooms being swept
and the beds made.

I followed her into a little lumber-room, where I did
not remember to have been before ; it was full of odds and
ends.

“ Why have you brought me here ? ” I asked.

She laughed and said —

“ Open the door in the wall opposite.

There was no door, and I said so.

Then she took my hand, and lo ! there was a door !
And she pushed, and we entered another suite of apartments
that never could have been there before ; there had nevei

2 72

PETER IBBETSON

been room for them, nor ever could have been in all

Passy !

“ Come,” she said, laughing and blushing at once ; for

“AND NEUHA LED HER TORQUIL BY THE HAND.”

she seemed nervous and excited and shy— “ do you
remember —

‘And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand,

And waved along the vaults her flaming brand ! ’

— do you remember your little drawing out of The Island,
in the green morocco Byron ? Here it is, in the top
drawer of this beautiful cabinet. Here are all the drawings

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273

you ever did for me — plain and coloured — with dates,
explanations, etc., all written by myself — P album de la fee
Tarapatapoum. They are only duplicates. I have the
real ones at my house in Hampshire.

“ The cabinet also is a duplicate ; — isn’t it a beauty ?
— it’s from the Czar’s Winter Palace. Everything here is
a duplicate, more or less. See, this is a little dining-room ;
— -did you ever see anything so perfect ? — it is the famous
salle a manger of Princesse de Chevagne. I never use it,
except now and then to eat a slice of English household
bread with French butter and ‘ cassonade.’ Little Mimsey,
out there, does so sometimes, when Gogo brings her one,
and it makes big Mimsey’s mouth water to see her, so she
has to go and do likewise. Would you like a slice ?

“You see the cloth is spread, deux couverts. There is
a bottle of famous champagne from Mr. De Rothschild’s ;
there’s plenty more where that came from. The flowers
are from Chatsworth, and this is a lobster salad for you.
Papa was great at lobster salads and taught me. I mixed
it myself a fortnight ago, and, as you see, it is as fresh and
sweet as if I had only just made it, and the floweis
haven’t faded a bit.

“ Here are cigarettes and pipes and cigars. I hope
they are good. I don’t smoke myself.

“ Isn’t all the furniture rare and beautiful ? I have robbed
every palace in Europe of its very best, and yet the owners
are not a penny the worse. You should see upstairs.

“ Look at those pictures — the very pick of Raphael
and Titian and Velasquez. Look at that piano I have
heard Liszt play upon it over and over again, in Leipsig !

“ Here is my library. Every book I ever read is there,
and every binding I ever admired. I don t often ieaa

T

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PETER IB BETS ON

them, but I dust them carefully. I’ve arranged that dust
shall fall on them in the usual way to make it real, and
remind one of the outer life one is so glad to leave. All
has to be taken very seriously here, and one must put one’s
self to a little trouble. See, here is my father’s microscope,
and under it a small spider caught on the premises by
myself. It is still alive. It seems cruel, doesn’t it? but
it only exists in our brains.

“ Look at the dress I’ve got on — feel it ; how every
detail is worked out. And you have unconsciously done
the same : that’s the suit you wore that morning at Cray
under the ash-tree — the nicest suit I ever saw. Here is a
spot of ink on your sleeve as real as can be (bravo !).
And this button is coming off — quite right ; I will
sew it on, with a dream needle, and dream thread, and a
dream thimble !

“This little door leads to every picture-gallery in
Europe. It took me a long time to build and arrange
them all by myself — quite a week of nights. It is very
pleasant to walk there with a good catalogue, and make it
rain cats and dogs outside.

“Through this curtain is an opera -box — the most
comfoi table one I ve ever been in j it does for theatres as
well, and oratorios and concerts and scientific lectures.
\ ou shall see from it every performance I’ve ever been at,
in half a dozen languages ; you shall hold my hand and
understand them all. Every singer that I ever heard, you
shall hear. Dear Giulia Grisi shall sing the ‘ Willow Son<? ’
again and again, and you shall hear the applause. Ah,
what applause !

Come into this little room — my favourite ; out of
thh window and down these steps we can walk or drive to

PETER IB BETS ON

275

any place you or I have ever been to, and other places
besides. Nothing is far, and we have only to go hand in
hand. I don’t know yet where my stables and coach¬
houses are ; you must help me to find out. But so far I
have never lacked a carriage at the bottom of those steps
when I wanted to drive, nor a steam-launch, nor a gondola ;
nor a lovely place to go to.

“ Out of this window, from this divan, we can sit and
gaze on whatever we like. What shall it be? Just now,
you perceive, there is a wild and turbulent sea, with not a
ship in sight. Do you hear the waves tumbling and
splashing, and see the albatross ? I had been reading
Keats’s ‘ Ode to the Nightingale,’ and was so fascinated by
the idea of a lattice opening on the foam

1 Of perilous seas by faery lands forlorn ’

that I thought it would be nice to have a lattice like that
myself. I tried to evolve that sea from my inner
consciousness, you know, or rather from seas that I have
sailed over. Do you like it? It was done a fortnight
ago, and the waves have been tumbling about ever since.
How they roar ! and hark at the wind ! I couldn’t manage
the ‘ faery lands.’ It wants one lattice for the sea, and
one for the land, I’m afraid. You must help me. Mean¬
while, what would you like there to-night — the Yosemite
Valley? the Nevski Prospect in the winter, with the
sledges ? the Rialto ? the Bay of Naples after sunset, with
Vesuvius in eruption ? ” . . .

— “ O Mary — Mimsey — what do I care for Vesuvius,
and sunsets, and the Bay of Naples . . . just nozv ? . . .
Vesuvius is in my heart ! ”

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Thus began for us both a period of twenty-five years,
during which we passed eight or nine hours out of the
twenty -four in each other’s company — except on a few
rare occasions, when illness or some other cause prevented
one of us from sleeping at the proper time.

Mary ! Mary !

I idolised her while she lived ; I idolise her memory.

For her sake all women are sacred to me, even the
lowest and most depraved and God-forsaken. They always
found a helping friend in her.

How can I pay a fitting tribute to one so near to
me — nearer than any woman can ever have been to any
man ?

I know her mind as I know my own ! No two human
souls can ever have interpenetrated each other as ours
have done, or we should have heard of it. Every thought
she ever had from her childhood to her death has been
revealed — every thought of mine ! Living as we did, it
was inevitable. The touch of a finger was enough to
establish the strange circuit, and wake a common con¬
sciousness of past and present, either hers or mine.

And oh, how thankful am I that some lucky chance
has preserved me, murderer and convict as I am, from
anything she would have found it impossible to condone !

I try not to think that shyness and poverty, ungainliness
and social imbecility combined, have had as much to do
as self-restraint and self-respect in keeping me out of so
many pitfalls that have been fatal to so many men better
and more gifted than myself.

I try to think that her extraordinary affection, the
chance result of a persistent impression received in child¬
hood, has followed me through life without my knowing it.

PETER IBBETSON

2 77

and in some occult, mysterious way has kept me from
thoughts and deeds that would have rendered me unworthy,
even in her too indulgent eyes.

Who knows but that her sweet mother’s farewell kiss
and blessing, and the tender tears she shed over me when
I bade her good-bye at the avenue gate so many years
ago, may have had an antiseptic charm ? Mary ! I have
followed her from her sickly, suffering childhood to her
girlhood — from her half-ripe, gracefully lanky girlhood to
the day of her retirement from the world of which she was
so great an ornament. From girl to woman it seemed like
a triumphal procession through all the courts of Europe —
scenes the like of which I have never even dreamed —
flattery and strife to have turned the head of any princess !
And she was the simple daughter of a working scientist
and physician — the granddaughter of a fiddler.

Yet even Austrian court etiquette was waived in favour
of the child of plain Dr. Seraskier.

What men have I seen at her feet — how splendid,
handsome, gallant, brilliant, chivalrous, lordly, and gay !
And to all, from her, the same happy geniality — the same
kindly, laughing, frolicsome, innocent gaiety, with never a
thought of self.

M. le Major was right — “ elle avait toutes les intelli¬
gences de la tete et du cceur.” And old and young, the
best and the worst, seemed to love and respect her alike
and women as well as men — for her perfect sincerity,
her sweet reasonableness.

And all this time I was plodding at my dull drawing-
board at Pentonville, carrying out another’s designs for a
stable or a pauper’s cottage, and not even achieving that
poor task particularly well !

278

PETER IB BETS ON

It would have driven me mad with humiliation and
jealousy to see this past life of hers, but we saw it all hand
in hand together — the magical circuit was established !
And I knew, as I saw, how it all affected her, and
marvelled at her simplicity in thinking all this pomp and
splendour of so little consequence.

And I trembled to find that what space in her heart
was not filled by the remembrance of her ever -beloved
mother and the image of her father (one of the noblest and
best of men) enshrined the ridiculous figure of a small boy
in a white silk hat and an Eton jacket. And that small
boy was I !

Then came a dreadful twelvemonth that I was fain to
leave a blank — the twelvemonth during which her girlish
fancy for her husband lasted — and then her life was mine
again for ever !

And my life !

The life of a convict is not, as a rule, a happy one ;
his bed is not generally thought a bed of roses.

Mine was !

If I had been the most miserable leper that ever
crawled to his wattled hut in Molokai, I should also have
been the happiest of men, could sleep but have found me
there, and could I but sleeping have been the friend of
sleeping Mary Seraskier. She would have loved me all
the more !

She has filled my long life of bondage with such
felicity as no monarch has ever dreamed, and has found
her own felicity in doing so. That poor, plodding exist¬
ence I led before my great misadventure, and have tried
to describe — she has witnessed almost every hour of it
with passionate interest and sympathy, as we went hand

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279

in hand together through each other’s past. She would
at any time have been only too glad to share it, leaving
her own.

I dreaded the effect of such a sordid revelation upon
one who had lived so brilliantly and at such an altitude.

I need have had no fear ! J ust as she thought me an “ an¬
gelic hero ” at eight years old, she remained persuaded all
through her life that I was an Apollo — a misunderstood
genius— a martyr !

I am sick with shame when I think of it. But I am
not the first unworthy mortal on whom blind, undis¬
criminating love has chosen to lavish its most priceless
treasures. Tarapatapoum is not the only fairy who has
idealised a hulking clown with an ass’s head into a Prince
Charming ; the spectacle, alas ! is not infrequent. But at
least I have been humbly thankful for the undeserved
blessing, and known its value. And, moreover, I think I
may lay claim to one talent : that of also knowing by in¬
tuition when and where and how to love — in a moment -
in a flash — and for ever !

Twenty-five years!

It seems like a thousand, so much have we seen and
felt and done in that busy enchanted quarter of a century.
And yet how quickly the time has sped !

And now I must endeavour to give some account of
our wonderful inner life — d deux — a delicate and difficult
task.

There is both an impertinence and a lack of taste
in any man’s laying bare to the public eye to any eye

_ the bliss that has come to him through the love of

a devoted woman, with whose life his own has been
bound up.

28o

PETER I BEETS ON

The most sympathetic reader is apt to be repelled by
such a revelation — to be sceptical of the beauties and vir¬
tues and mental gifts of one he has never seen ; at all
events, to feel that they are no concern of his, and ought
to be the subject of a sacred reticence on the part of her
too fortunate lover or husband.

The lack of such reticence has marred the interest of
many an autobiography — of many a novel, even ; and in
private life, who does not know by painful experience how
embarrassing to the listener such tender confidences can
sometimes be ? I will try my best not to transgress in
this particular. If I fail (I may have failed already), I
can only plead that the circumstances are quite excep¬
tional and not to be matched ; and that allowances must
be made for the deep gratitude I owe and feel over and
above even my passionate admiration and love.

For the next three years my life has nothing to show
but the alternation of such honeymooning as never was
before with a dull but contented prison life, not one hour
of which is worth recording, or even remembering, except
as a foil to its alternative.

It had but one hour for me, the bed hour, and for¬
tunately that was an early one.

Healthily tired in body, blissfully expectant in mind,

I would lie on my back, with my hands duly crossed under
my head, and sleep would soon steal over me like balm ;
and before I had forgotten who and what and where I
really was, I would reach the goal on which my will was
intent, and waking up, find my body in another place, in
another garb, on a couch by an enchanted window, still
with my arms crossed behind my head — in the sacra¬
mental attitude.

PETER IB BETS ON

281

Then would I stretch my limbs and slip myself free
of my outer life, as a new-born butterfly from the durance
of its self-spun cocoon, with an unutterable sense of youth
and strength and freshness and felicity ; and opening my
eyes I would see on the adjacent couch the form of Mary,
also supine, but motionless and inanimate as a statue.
Nothing could wake her to life till the time came : her
hours were somewhat later, and she was still in the toils
of the outer life I had just left behind me.

And these toils, in her case, were more complicated
than in mine. Although she had given up the world,
she had many friends and an immense correspondence.
And then, being a woman endowed with boundless health
and energy, splendid buoyancy of animal spirits, and a
great capacity for business, she had made for herself many
cares and occupations.

She was the virtual mistress of a home for fallen
women, a reformatory for juvenile thieves, and a children’s
convalescent hospital — to all of which she gave her im¬
mediate personal superintendence, and almost every penny
she had. She had let her house in Hampshire, and lived
with a couple of female servants in a small furnished
house on Camden Hill. She did without a carriage, and
went about in cabs and omnibuses, dressed like a daily
governess, though nobody could appear more regally
magnificent than she did when we were together.

She still kept her name and title, as a potent weapon
of influence on behalf of her charities, and wielded it
mercilessly in her constant raid on the purse of the
benevolent Philistine, who is fond of great people.

All of which gave rise to much comment that did not
affect her equanimity in the least.

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PETER IB BETS ON

She also attended lectures, committees, boards, and
councils ; opened bazaars and soup kitchens and coffee
taverns, etc. The list of her self-imposed tasks was end¬
less. Thus her outer life was filled to overflowing', and,
unlike mine, every hour of it was worth record — as I well
know, who have witnessed it all. But this is not the
place in which to write the outer life of the Duchess of
Towers ; another hand has done that, as everybody
knows.

Every page henceforward must be sacred to Mary
Seraskier, the “ fee Tarapatapoum ” of “ Magna sed Apta ”
(for so we had called the new home and palace of art she
had added on to “ Parva sed Apta,” the home of her
childhood).

To return thither, where we left her lying unconscious.
Soon the colour would come back to her cheeks, the breath
to her nostrils, the pulse to her heart, and she would wake
to her Eden, as she called it — our common inner life —
that we might spend it in each other’s company for the
next eight hours.

Pending this happy moment, I would make coffee
(such coffee !), and smoke a cigarette or two ; and to fully
appreciate the bliss of that , one must be a habitual smoker
who lives his real life in an English jail.

When she awoke from her sixteen hours’ busy trance
in the outer world, such a choice of pleasures lay before
us as no other mortal has ever known. She had been all
her life a great traveller, and had dwelt in many lands
and cities, and seen more of life and the world and nature
than most people. I had but to take her hand, and one
of us had but to wish, and, lo ! wherever either of us had
been, whatever either of us had seen or heard or felt, or

PETER IB BETS ON

even eaten or drunk, there it was all over again to choose
from, with the other to share in it — such a hypnotism of
ourselves and each other as was never dreamed of before.

Everything was as lifelike, as real to us both, as it
had been to either at the actual time of its occurrence, with
an added freshness and charm that never belonged to
mortal existence. It was no dream ; it was a second life,
a better land.

We had, however, to stay within certain bounds, and
beware of transgressing certain laws that we discovered
for ourselves, but could not quite account for. For in¬
stance, it was fatal to attempt exploits that were outside
of our real experience : to fly, or to jump from a height,
or do any of those non-natural things that make the charm
and wonder of ordinary dreams. If we did so our true
dream was blurred, and became as an ordinary dream —
vague, futile, unreal, and untrue — the baseless fabric of a
vision. Nor must we alter ourselves in any way ; even to
the shape of a finger-nail, we must remain ourselves ;
although we kept ourselves at our very best, and could
choose what age we should be. We chose from twenty-
six to twenty-eight, and stuck to it.

Yet there were many things, quite as impossible in
real life, that we could do with impunity — most delightful
things 1

For instance, after the waking cup of coffee, it was
certainly delightful to spend a couple of hours in the
Yosemite Valley, leisurely strolling about and gazing at
the giant pines — a never-palling source of delight to both
of us — breathing the fragrant fresh air, looking at our
fellow-tourists and listening to their talk, with the agreeable
consciousness that, solid and substantial as we were to each

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other, we were quite inaudible, invisible, and intangible
to them. Often we would dispense with the tourists,
and have the Yosemite Valley all to ourselves. (Always
there, and in whatever place she had visited with her
husband, we would dispense with the figure of her former
self and him, a sight I could not have borne.)

When we had strolled and gazed our fill, it was
delightful again, just by a slight effort of her will and a few
moments’ closing of our eyes, to find ourselves driving
along the Via Cornice to an exquisite garden concert in
Dresden, or being rowed in a gondola to a Saturday Pop
at St. James’s Hall. And thence, jumping into a hansom,
we would be whisked through Piccadilly and the park and
the Arc de Triomphe home to “ Magna sed Apta,” Rue de
la Pompe, Passy (a charming drive, and not a bit too long),
just in time for dinner.

A very delicious little dinner, judiciously ordered out
of her remembrance, not mine (and served in the most ex¬
quisite little dining-room in all Paris— the Princesse de
Chevagne’s) : “ huitres d’Ostende,” let us say, and “ soupe
a la bonne femme,” with a “ perdrix aux choux ” to follow,
and pancakes, and “ fromage de Brie ” ; and to drink, a
bottle of “ Romane Conti ” ; without even the bother of
waiters to change the dishes ; a wish, a moment’s shutting
of the eyes — augenblick ! and it was done — and then we
could wait on each other.

After my prison fare, and with nothing but tenpenny
London dinners to recollect in the immediate past, I trust
I shall not be thought a gross materialist for appreciating
these small banquets, and in such company. (The only
dinner I could recall which was not a tenpenny one, ex¬
cept the old dinners of my childhood, was that famous

TO ST. JAMES’S HALL, PICCADILLY.

286

PETER IB BETS ON

dinner at Cray, where I had discovered that the Duchess
of Towers was Mimsey Seraskier, and I did not eat much
of that)

Then a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and a glass of
curagoa ; and after, to reach our private box we had but
to cross the room and lift a curtain.

And there before us was the theatre or opera-house
brilliantly lighted, and the instruments tuning up, and
the splendid company pouring in : crowned heads, famous
beauties, world-renowned warriors and statesmen, Garibaldi,
Gortschakoff, Cavour, Bismarck, and Moltke, now so
famous, and who not ? Mary would point them out to
me. And in the next box Dr. Seraskier and his tall
daughter, who seemed friends with all that brilliant crowd.

Now it was St. Petersburg, now Berlin, now Vienna,
Paris, Naples, Milan, London — every great city in turn.
But our box was always the same, and always the best in
the house, and I the one person privileged to smoke
my cigar in the face of all that royalty, fashion, and
splendour.

Then, after the overture, up went the curtain. If it
was a play, and the play was in German or Russian or
Italian, I had but to touch Mary’s little finger to understand
it all— a true but incomprehensible thing. P'or well as I
might understand, I could not have spoken a word of
either, and the moment that slight contact was discon¬
tinued, they might as well have been acting in Greek or
Hebrew, for me.

But it was for music we cared the most, and I think I
may say that of music during those three years (and ever
after) we have had our glut. For all through her busy
waking life Mary found time to hear whatever good music

PETER IB BETS ON

287

was going on in London, that she might bring it back to
me at night ; and we would rehear it together, again and
again, and da capo.

It is a rare privilege for two private individuals, and

TO THE OPERA-BOX.

one of them a convict, to assist at a performance honoured
by the patronage and presence of crowned heads, and yet
be able to encore any particular thing that pleases them.
How often have we done that !

O Joachim ! O Clara Schumann ! O Piatti ! — -all of
whom I know so well, but have never heard with the

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PETER I BEETS ON

fleshly ear ! O others, whom it would be invidious to
mention without mentioning all — a glorious list ! How
we have made you, all unconscious, repeat the same move¬
ments over and over again, without ever from you a sign
of impatience or fatigue ! How often have we summoned
Liszt to play to us on his own favourite piano, which
adorned our own favourite sitting-room ! How little he
knew (or will ever know now, alas !) what exquisite delight
he gave us !

O Patti, Angelina ! O Santley and Sims Reeves ! O
De Soria, nightingale of the drawing-room, I wonder you
have a note left !

And you, Ristori, and you, Salvini, et vous, divine
Sarah, qui debutiez alors ! On me dit que votre adorable
voix a perdu un peu de sa premiere fraicheur. Cela ne
m’etonne pas ! Bien stir, nous y sommes pour quelque
chose !

And then the picture-galleries, the museums, the
botanical and zoological gardens of all countries—" Magna
sed Apta ” had space for them all, even to the Elgin
Marbles room of the British Museum, which I added
myself.

What enchanted hours have we spent among the
pictures and statues of the world, weeding them here and
there, perhaps, or hanging them differently, or placing them
in what we thought a better light! The “Venus of Milo”
showed to far greater advantage in “Magna sed Apta ”
than at the Louvre.

And when busied thus delightfully at home, and to
enhance the delight, we made it shocking bad weather
outside ; it rained cats and dogs, or else the north wind

PETER IB BETS ON

289

piped, and snow fell on the desolate gardens of “ Magna
sed Apta,” and whitened the landscape as far as eye could
see.

Nearest to our hearts however were many pictures of
our own time, for we were moderns of the moderns, after
all, in spite of our efforts at self-culture.

There was scarcely a living or recently living master
in Europe whose best works were not in our possession,
so lighted and hung that even the masters themselves
would have been content ; for we had plenty of s*pace at
our command, and each picture had a wall to itself, so
toned as to do full justice to its beauty, and a comfortable
sofa for two just opposite.

But in the little room we most lived in, the room with
the magic window, we had crowded a few special favourites
of the English school, for we had so much foreign blood
in us that we were more British than John Bull himself —

plus royalistes que le Roi.

There were Millais’s “ Autumn Leaves,” his “ Youth of
Sir Walter Raleigh,” his “ Chill October ” ; Watts’s
“ Endymion,” and “ Orpheus and Eurydice ” ; Burne-
Jones’s “ Chant d’ Amour,” and his “ Laus Veneris ” ; Alma-
Tadema’s “Audience of Agrippa,” and the “Women of
Amphissa ” ; J. Whistler’s portrait of his mother ; the
“ Venus and SEsculapius,” by E. J. Poynter ; F. Leighton’s
“ Daphnephoria ” ; George Mason’s “ Harvest-Moon ” ; and
Frederic Walker’s “ Harbour of Refuge,” and, of course,
Merridew’s “ Sun-God.”

While on a screen, designed by H. S. Marks, and ex¬
quisitely decorated round the margin with golden plovers
and their eggs (which I adore), were smaller gems in oil
and water-colour that Mary had fallen in love with at one

U

290

PETER IB BETS ON

time or another. The immortal “ Moonlight Sonata,” by
Whistler ; E. J. Poynter’s exquisite “ Our Lady of the
Fields,” (dated Paris, 1857) ; a pair of adorable “ Bimbi ”
by V. Prinsep, who seems very fond of children ; T. R.
Lamont’s touching “ L’Apres Diner de l’Abbe Constantin,”
with the sweet girl playing the old spinet ; and that
admirable work of T. Armstrong, in his earlier and more
realistic manner, “ Le Zouave et la Nounou,” not to
mention splendid rough sketches by John Leech, Charles
Keene, Tenniel, Sambourne, Furniss, Caldecott, etc. ;
not to mention, also, endless little sketches in silver
point of a most impossibly colossal, black-avised, shaggy-
coated St. Bernard — signed with the familiar French
name of some gay troubadour of the pencil, some stray
half-breed like myself, and who seems to have loved his
dog as much as I loved mine.

Then suddenly, in the midst of all this unparalleled
artistic splendour, we felt that a something was wanting.
There was a certain hollowness about it ; and we dis¬
covered that in our case the principal motives for collecting
all these beautiful things were absent.

1. We were not the sole possessors.

2. We had nobody to show them to.

3. Therefore we could take no pride in them.

And found that when we wanted bad weather for a
change, and the joys of home, we could be quite as happy
in my old schoolroom, where the squirrels and the monkey
and the hedgehog were, with each of us a cane-bottomed
armchair by the wood fire, each roasting chestnuts for the
other, and one book between us, for one of us to read out
loud ; or, better still, the morning and evening papers she
had read a few hours earlier ; and, marvellous to relate, she

PETER IB PERSON

291

had not even read them when awake ! she had merely
gdanced through them carefully, taking in the aspect of each
column one after another, from top to bottom — and yet

THE NURSERY SCHOOLROOM.

she was able to read out every word from the dream-
paper she held in her hands — thus truly chewing the
very cud of journalism !

This always seemed to us, in a small but practical way,
the most complete and signal triumph of mind over matter
we had yet achieved.

Not, indeed, that we could read much, we had so much
to talk about.

Unfortunately, the weak part of “Magna sed Apta was
its library. Naturally it could only consist of books that

292

PETER IB BETS ON

one or the other of us had read when awake. She had
led such an active life that but little leisure had been left
her for books, and I had read only as an everyday young
man reads who is fond of reading.

However, such books as we had read were made the
most of, and so magnificently bound that even their authors
would have blushed with pride and pleasure had they been
there to see. And though we had little time for reading
them over again, we could enjoy the true bibliophilous
delight of gazing at their backs, and taking them down
and fingering them and putting them carefully back again.

In most of these treats, excursions, festivities, and
pleasures of the fireside, Mary was naturally leader and
hostess ; it could scarcely have been otherwise.

There was once a famous Mary, of whom it was said that
to know her was a liberal education. I think I may say
that to have known Mary Seraskier has been all that to me !

But now and then I would make some small attempt
at returning her hospitality.

We have slummed together in Clerkenwell, Smithfield,
Cow Cross, Petticoat Lane, Ratcliffe Highway, and the
East India and West India docks.

She has been with me to penny gaffs and music halls ;
to Greenwich Fair, and Cremorne and Rosherville gardens
— and liked them all. She knew Pentonville as well as I
do ; and my old lodgings there, where we have both leaned
over my former shoulder as I read or drew. It was she who
rescued from oblivion my little prophetic song about “ The
Chime,” which I had quite forgotten. She has been to Mr.
Lintot’s parties, and found them most amusing — especially
Mr. Lintot.

PETER IB BETS ON

293

And going further back into the past, she has roamed
with me all over Paris, and climbed with me the towers of
Notre Dame, and looked in vain for the mystic word
’A vdy/aj !

But I had also better things to show, untravelled as I

was.

She had never seen Hampstead Heath, which I knew
by heart; and Hampstead Heath at any time, but especially
on a sunny morning in late October, is not to be disdained
by any one.

Half the leaves have fallen, so that one can see the
fading glory of those that remain ; yellow and brown and
pale and hectic red, shining like golden guineas and bright
copper coins against the rich, dark, business-like green of
the trees that mean to flourish all the winter through, like
the tall slanting pines near the Spaniards, and the old
cedar-trees, and hedges of yew and holly, for which the
Hampstead gardens are famous.

Before us lies a sea of fern, gone a russet-brown from
decay, in which are isles of dark green gorse, and little
trees with little scarlet and orange and lemon -coloured
leaflets fluttering down, and running after each other on
the bright grass, under the brisk west wind which makes
the willows rustle, and turn up the whites of their leaves
in pious resignation to the coming change.

Harrow-on-the-Hill, with its pointed spire, rises blue
in the distance ; and distant ridges, like receding waves,
rise into blueness, one after the other, out of the low-
lying mist ; the last ridge bluely melting into space. In
the midst of it all gleams the Welsh Harp Lake, like a
piece of sky that has become unstuck and tumbled into the
landscape with its shiny side up.

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On the other side, all London, with nothing but the
gilded cross of St. Paul s on a level with the eye , it lies
at our feet, as Paris used to do from the heights of Passy,
a sight to make true dreamers gaze and think and dream
the more ; and there we sit thinking and dreaming and
gazing our fill, hand in hand, our spirits rushing together.

Once as we sat we heard the clatter of hoofs behind
us, and there was a troop of my old regiment out exer¬
cising. Invisible to all but ourselves, and each other,
we watched the wanton troopers riding by on their meek
black chargers.

First came the cornet — a sunny -haired Apollo, a
gilded youth, graceful and magnificent to the eye —
careless, fearless, but stupid, harsh, and proud- — an
English Phebus de Chateaupers — the son of a great
contractor ; I remembered him well, and that he loved
me not. Then the rank and file in stable jackets, most
of them (but for a stalwart corporal here and there) raw,
lanky youths, giving promise of much future strength,
and each leading a second horse ; and amongst them,
longest and lankiest of them all, but ruddy as a plough-
boy, and stolidly whistling, “ On revient toujours a ses
premiers amours ,” rode my former self — a sight (or sound)
that seemed to touch some tender chord in Mary’s nature,
where there were so many ; since it filled her eyes with
tears.

To describe in full a honeymoon filled with such
adventures, and that lasted for three years, is unnecessary.
It would be but another superficial record of travel, by
another unskilled pen. And what a pen is wanted for
such a theme ! It was not mere life, it was the very
cream and essence of life, that we shared with each other

ON REVIENT TOUJOUES A SES PREMIERS AMOURS.

296

PETER IB BETS ON

—all the toil and trouble, the friction and fatigue, left out.
The necessary earthly journey through time and space
from one joy to another was omitted, unless such a
journey were a joy in itself.

For instance, a pleasant hour can be spent on the
deck of a splendid steamer, as it cleaves its way through
a sapphire tropical sea, bound for some lovely West
Indian islet ; with a good cigar and the dearest com¬
panion in the world, watching the dolphins and the
flying- fish, and mildly interesting one’s self in one’s
fellow-passengers, the captain, the crew. And then, the
hour spent and the cigar smoked out, it is well to shut
one’s eyes and have one’s self quietly lowered down the
side of the vessel into a beautiful sledge, and then, half
smothered in costly furs, to be whirled along the frozen
Neva to a ball at the Winter Palace, there to valse with
one’s Mary among all the beauty and chivalry of St.
Petersburg, and never a soul to find fault with one’s
valsing, which at first was far from perfect, or one’s attire,
which was not that of the fashionable world of the day,
nor was Mary’s either. We were aesthetic people, and
very Greek, who made for ourselves fashions of our own,
which I will not describe.

Where have we not waltzed together, from Bucking¬
ham Palace downward ? I confess I grew to take a
delight in valsing, or waltzing, or whatever it is properly
called ; and although it is not much to boast of, I may
say that after a year or two no better dancer than I was
to be found in all Vienna.

And here, by the way, I may mention what pleasure
it gave me (hand in hand with Mary, of course, as usual)
to renew and improve my acquaintance with our British

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297

aristocracy, begun so agreeably many years ago at Lady
Cray’s concert.

Our British aristocracy does not waltz well by any
means, and lacks lightness generally ; but it may gratify
and encourage some of its members to hear that Peter
Ibbetson (ex-private soldier, architect and surveyor,
convict and criminal lunatic), who has had unrivalled
opportunities for mixing with the cream of European
society, considers our British aristocracy quite the best¬
looking, best-dressed, and best-behaved aristocracy of
them all, and the most sensible and the least exclusive
— perhaps the most sensible because the least exclusive.

It often snubs, but does not altogether repulse, those
gifted and privileged outsiders who (just for the honour
and glory of the thing) are ever so ready to flatter and
instruct and amuse it, and run its errands, and fetch and
carry, and tumble for its pleasure, and even to marry
such of its “ ugly ducklings ” (or shall we say such of its
“ unprepossessing cygnets ” ?) as cannot hope to mate with
birds of their own feather.

P'or it has the true English eye for physical beauty.

Indeed, it is much given to throw the handkerchief —
successfully, of course — and, most fortunately for itself,
beyond the pale of its own narrow precincts — nay, beyond
the broad Atlantic, even, to the land where beauty and
dollars are to be found in such happy combination.

Nor does it disdain the comeliness of the daughters of
Israel, nor their shekels, nor their brains, nor their ancient
and most valuable blood. It knows the secret virtue of
that mechanical transfusion of fluids familiar to science
under the name of “ endosmoses ” and “ exosmoses ” (I
hope I have spelled them rightly), and practises the same.

TO THE WINTER PALACE.

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299

Whereby it shows itself wise in its generation, and will
endure the longer, which cannot be very long.

Peter Ibbetson (etc. etc.), for one, wishes it no manner
of harm.

But to return. With all these temptations of travel
and amusement and society and the great world, such
was our insatiable fondness for “ the pretty place of our
childhood ” and all its associations, that our greatest
pleasure of all was to live our old life over again and
again, and make Gogo and Mimsey and our parents and
cousins and M. le Major go through their old paces once
more ; and to recall new old paces for them, which we
were sometimes able to do, out of stray forgotten bits of
the past ; to hunt for which was the most exciting sport
in the world.

Our tenderness for these beloved shades increased
with familiarity. We could see all the charm and good¬
ness and kindness of these dear fathers and mothers of
ours with the eyes of matured experience, for we were
pretty much of an age with them now ; no other children
could ever say as much since the world began, and how
few young parents could bear such a scrutiny as ours !

Ah ! what would we not have given to extort just a
spark of recognition, but that was impossible ; or to have
been able to whisper just a word of warning, which would
have averted the impending strokes of inexorable fate !
They might have been alive now, perhaps — old indeed,
but honoured and loved as no parents ever were before.
How different everything would have been ! Alas ! alas !

And of all things in the world, we never tired of that
walk through the avenue and park and Bois de Boulogne

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PETER IB BET SON

to the Mare d’Auteuil ; strolling there leisurely on an
early spring afternoon, just in time to spend a midsummer
hour or two on its bank, and watch the old water-rat and
the dytiscus and the tadpoles and newts, and see the frogs
jump ; and then walking home at dusk in the late autumn
for tea and roast chestnuts in the schoolroom of my old
home ; and then back to warm, well-lighted “ Magna sed
Apta ” by moonlight, through the avenue on New Year’s
Eve, ankle-deep in snow ; all in a few short hours.

Dream winds and dream weathers — what an enchant¬
ment ! And all real !

Soft caressing rains that do not wet us if we do not
wish them to ; sharp frosts that brace but never chill ;
blazing suns that neither scorch nor dazzle.

Blustering winds of early spring, that seem to sweep
right through these solid frames of ours, and thrill us to
the very marrow with the old heroic excitement and
ecstasy we knew so well in happy childhood, but can no
longer feel now when awake !

Bland summer breezes, heavy with the scent of long-
lost French woods and fields and gardens in full flower ;
swift, soft, moist equinoctial gales, blowing from the far-off
orchards of Meudon, or the old market gardens of Suresnes
in their autumnal decay, and laden, we do not know why,
with strange, mysterious, troubling reminiscence too subtle
and elusive to be expressed in any tongue— too sweet for
any words ! And then the dark December wind that comes
down from the north, and brings the short, early twilights
and the snow, and drives us home, pleasantly shivering,
to the chimney-corner and the hissing logs — chez nous !

It is the last night of an old year — la veille du jour
de Van.

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301

Ankle-deep in snow, we walk to warm, well -lighted
“ Magna sed Apta,” up the moonlit avenue. It is dream
snow, and yet we feel it crunch beneath our feet ; but if
we turn to look, the tracks of our footsteps have dis¬
appeared — and we cast no shadows, though the moon is
full !

M. le Major goes by, and Yverdon the postman, and
Pere Francois, with his big sabots, and others, and their
footprints remain — and their shadows are strong and
sharp !

They wish each other the compliments of the season
as they meet and pass ; they wish us nothing! We give
them la bonne annee at the tops of our voices ; they do
not heed us in the least, though our voices are as resonant
as theirs. We are wishing them a “ Happy New Year,”
that dawned for good or evil nearly twenty years ago.

Out comes Gogo from the Seraskiers’, with Mimsey.
He makes a snowball and throws it. It flies straight
through me, and splashes itself on Pere Francois’s broad
back. “ Ah, ce polisson de Monsieur Gogo . . . attendez
un peu ! ” and Pere Francois returns the compliment —
straight through me again, as it seems ; and I do not even
feel it ! Mary and I are as solid to each other as flesh
and blood can make us. We cannot even touch these
dream people without their melting away into thin air ;
we can only hear and see them, but that in perfection !

There goes little Andre Corbin, the poulterer’s son,
running along the slippery top of Madame Pele’s garden
wall, which is nearly ten feet high.

“ Good heavens,” cries Mary, “ stop him ! Don’t you
remember ? When he gets to the corner he’ll fall down
and break both his legs ! ”

PETER I BBETSON

“MAMAN M'A DONNE QUAT’ SOUS.”

I rush and bellow out to him —

“ Descends done, malheureux ; tu vas te casser les
deux jambes ! Saute ! saute ! ” . . . I cry, holding out

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303

my arms. He does not pay the slightest attention ; he
reaches the corner, followed low down by Gogo and
Mimsey, who are beside themselves with generous envy
and admiration. Stimulated by their applause, he
becomes more foolhardy than ever, and even tries to be
droll, and standing on one leg, sings a little song that
begins —

“ Maman m’a donne quad sous
Pour m’en aller k la foire,

Non pas pour manger ni boire,

Mais pour m’regaler d’joujoux !

Then suddenly down he slips, poor boy, and breaks
both his legs below the knee on an iron rail, whereby he
becomes a cripple for life.

All this sad little tragedy of a New Year’s Eve plays
itself anew. The sympathetic crowd collects ; Mimsey
and Gogo weep ; the heart-broken parents arrive, and the
good little doctor Larcher ; and Mary and I look on like
criminals, so impossible it seems not to feel that we might
have prevented it all !

We two alone are alive and substantial in all this
strange world of shadows, who seem, as far as we can
hear and see, no less substantial and alive than ourselves.
They exist for us ; we do not exist for them. We exist
for each other only, waking or sleeping ; for even the
people among whom our waking life is spent know hardly
more of us, and what our real existence is, than poor little
Andre Corbin who has just broken his legs for us over again !

And so, back to “ Magna sed Apta,” both saddened
by this deplorable misadventure, to muse and talk and
marvel over these wonders ; penetrated to the very heart’s
core by a dim sense of some vast, mysterious power, latent

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PETER IB BETS ON

in the sub-consciousness of man— unheard of, undreamed of
as yet, but linking him with the Infinite and the Eternal.

And how many things we always had to talk about
besides !

Heaven knows, I am not a brilliant conversationalist,
but she was the most easily amusable person in the world
- — interested in everything that interested me, and I dis-
damaged myself (to use one of her Anglo-Gallicisms) of
the sulky silence of years.

Of her as a companion it is not for me to speak. It
would be impertinent, and even ludicrous, for a person in
my position to dilate on the social gifts of the famous
Duchess of Towers.

Incredible as it may appear, however, most of our
conversation was about very common and earthly topics
— her homes and refuges, the difficulties of their manage¬
ment, her eternal want of money, her many schemes and
plans and experiments and failures and disenchantments
— in all of which I naturally took a very warm interest.
And then my jail, and all that occurred there — in all of
which I became interested myself because it interested her
so passionately ; she knew every corner of it that I knew,
every detail of the life there — the name, appearance, and
history of almost every inmate, and criticised its internal
economy with a practical knowledge of affairs, a business¬
like sagacity at which I never ceased to marvel.

One of my drollest recollections is of a visit she paid
there in the flesh, accompanied by some famous philan¬
thropists of both sexes. I was interviewed by them all
as the model prisoner, who, but for his unorthodoxy, was
a credit to the institution. She listened demurely to my
intelligent answers when I was questioned as to my bodily

PETER IB BETS ON

3°5

health, etc., and asked whether I had any complaints to
make. Complaints ! Never was jail-bird so thoroughly
satisfied with his nest — -so healthy, so happy, so well-
behaved. She took notes all the time.

Eight hours before we had been strolling hand in
hand through the Uffizi Gallery in Florence ; eight hours
later we should be in each other’s arms.

Strange to relate, this happiness of ours — so deep, so
acute, so transcendent, so unmatched in all the history of
human affection — was not always free of unreasonable
longings and regrets. Man is never so blessed but what
he would have his blessedness still greater.

The reality of our close companionship, of our true
possession of each other (during our allotted time), was
absolute, complete, and thorough. No Darby that ever
lived can ever have had sweeter, warmer, more tender
memories of any Joan than I have now of Mary Seraskier !
Although each was, in a way, but a seeming illusion of
the other’s brain, the illusion was no illusion for us. It
was an illusion that showed the truth, as does the illusion
of sight. Like twin kernels in one shell (“ Philipschen,”
as Mary called it), we touched at more points and were
closer than the rest of mankind (with each of them a
separate shell of his own). We tried and tested this in
every way we could devise, and never found ourselves at
fault, and never ceased to marvel at so great a wonder.
For instance, I received letters from her in jail (and
answered them) in an intricate cipher we had invented
and perfected together entirely during sleep, and referring
to things that had happened to us both when together.1

1 Several of these letters are in my possession. (“Madge Plunicet ”.)

X

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PETER IB BET SON

Our privileges were such as probably no human beings
could have ever enjoyed before. Time and space were
annihilated for us at the mere wish of either — we lived in
a palace of delight ; all conceivable luxuries were ours —
and, better than all, and perennially, such freshness and
elation as belong only to the morning of life — and such a
love for each other (the result of circumstances not to be
paralleled) as time could never slake or quench till death
should come and part us. All this, and more, was our
portion for eight hours out of every twenty-four.

So what must we do sometimes, but fret that the
sixteen hours which remained did not belong to us as
well ; that we must live two-thirds of our lives apart ;
that we could not share the toils and troubles of our
work-a-day, waking existence, as we shared the blissful
guerdon of our seeming sleep — the glories of our common
dream.

And then we would lament the lost years we had
spent in mutual ignorance and separation — a deplorable
waste of life ; when life, sleeping or waking, was so short.

How different things might have been with us had
we but known !

We need never have lost sight and touch of each
other ; we might have grown up, and learned and worked
and struggled together from the first — boy and girl,
brother and sister, lovers, man and wife — and yet have
found our blessed dreamland and dwelt in it just the same.

Children might have been born to us! Sweet children,
beaux comme le jour, as in Perrault’s fairy tales ; even
beautiful and good as their mother.

And as we talked of these imaginary little beings
and tried to picture them, we felt in ourselves such a

PETER IB PERSON

30 7

stupendous capacity for loving the same that we would
fall to weeping on each other’s shoulders. Full well I
knew, even as if they had formed part of my own
personal experience, all the passion and tenderness, all
the wasted anguish of her brief, ill-starred motherhood :
the very ache of my jealousy that she should have borne
a child to another man was forgotten in that keen and
thorough comprehension ! Ah yes . . . that hungry love,
that woful pity, which not to know is hardly quite to have
lived ! Childless as I am (though old enough to be a
grandfather), I have it all by heart !

Never could we hope for son or daughter of our own.
For us the blessed flower of love in rich, profuse, unfading
bloom ; but its blessed fruit of life, never, never, never !

Our only children were Mimsey and Gogo, between
whom and ourselves was an impassable gulf, and who
were unconscious of our very existence, except for
Mimsey’s strange consciousness that a Fairy Tarapa-
tapoum and a Prince Charming were watching over them.

All this would always end as it could not but end,
in our realising the more fully our utter dependence on
each other for all that made life not only worth living,
ingrates that we were, but a heaven on earth for us both ;
and, indeed, we could not but recognise that merely thus
to love and be loved was in itself a thing so immense
(without all the other blessings we had) that we were fain
to tremble at our audacity in daring to wish for more.

Thus sped three years, and would have sped all the
rest, perhaps, but for an incident that made an epoch in
our joint lives, and turned all our thoughts and energies
in a new direction.

MARY, DUCHESS OF TOWERS.

From a photograph by Strlkzchuski Warsaw.

OME petty an-
noyance to
which I had
been subjected by
one of the prison
authorities had
kept me awake for
a little while after
I had gone to bed,
so that when at last
I awoke in “ Mag¬
na sed Apta,” and
lay on my couch
there (with that
ever-fresh feeling of

coming

in

to life

heaven after my
daily round of
work in an earthly jail), I was conscious that Mary was
there already, making coffee, the fragrance of which filled
the room, and softly humming a tune as she did so — a
quaint, original, but most beautiful tune, that thrilled me
with indescribable emotion, for I had never heard it with

3io

PETER IB BETS ON

the bodily ear before, and yet it was as familiar to me as
“ God save the Queen.”

As I listened with rapt ears and closed eyes, wonderful
scenes passed before my mental vision : the beautiful
white-haired lady of my childish dreams, leading a small
female child by the hand, and that child was myself ;
the pigeons and their tower, the stream and the water¬
mill ; the white-haired young man with red heels to his
shoes ; a very fine lady, very tall, stout, and middle-aged,
magnificently dressed in brocaded silk ; a park with lawns
and alleys and trees cut into trim formal shapes ; a
turreted castle — all kinds of charming scenes and people
of another age and country.

“ What on earth is that wonderful tune, Mary ? ” I
exclaimed, when she had finished it.

“ It’s my favourite tune,” she answered ; “ I seldom
hum it for fear of wearing away its charm. I suppose
that is why you have never heard it before. Isn’t it
lovely ? I’ve been trying to lull you awake with it.

“My grandfather, the violinist, used to play it with varia¬
tions of his own, and made it famous in his time ; but it
was never published, and it’s now forgotten.

“ It is called ‘ Le Chant du Triste Commensal,’ and
was composed by his grandmother, a beautiful French¬
woman, who played the fiddle too ; but not as a profession.
He remembered her playing it when he was a child and
she was quite an old lady, just as I remember his playing
it when I was a girl in Vienna, and he was a white-haired
old man. She used to play holding her fiddle downward,
on her knee, it seems ; and always played in perfect tune,
quite in the middle of the note, and with excellent taste
and expression ; it was her playing that decided his career.

PETER IB BETS ON

W i

But she was like 1 Single-speech Hamilton,’ for this was
the only thing she ever composed. She composed it
under great grief and excitement, just after her husband
had died from the bite of a wolf, and just before the
birth of her twin-daughters — her only children — one of
whom was my great-grandmother.”

“ And what was this wonderful old lady’s name ? ”

“ Gatienne Aubery ; she married a Breton squire
called Budes, who was a gentilhomme verrier near St.
Prest, in Anjou — that is, he made glass — -decanters,
water-bottles, tumblers, and all that, I suppose — in spite of
his nobility. It was not considered derogatory to do so ;
indeed, it was the only trade permitted to the noblesse , and
one had to be at least a squire to engage in it.

“ She was a very notable woman, la belle Verriere, as
she was called ; and she managed the glass factory for
many years after her husband’s death, and made lots of
money for her two daughters.”

“ How strange ! ” I exclaimed ; “ Gatienne Aubery !
Dame du Brail — Budes — the names are quite familiar to
me. Mathurin Budes, Seigneur de Monhoudeard et de
Verney le Moustier.”

“Yes, that’s it. How wonderful that you should
know! One daughter, Jeanne, married my great-grand¬
father, an officer in the Hungarian army ; and
Seraskier, the fiddler, was their only child. The other
(so like her sister that only her mother could distinguish
them) was called Anne, and married a Comte de Bois
something.”

“ Boismorinel. Why, all those names are in my
family too. My father used to make me paint their
arms and quarterings when I was a child, on Sunday

312

PETER IB BET SON

mornings, to keep me quiet. Perhaps we are related by
blood, you and I.”

“ Oh, that would be too delightful ! ” said Mary.
“ I wonder how we could find out ? Plave you no family
papers ? ”

/. “There were lots of them, in a horse-hair trunk,
but I don’t know where they are now. What good would
family papers have been to me ? Ibbetson took charge
of them when I changed my name. I suppose his
lawyers have got them.”

She. “Happy thought ; we will do without lawyers. Let
us go round to your old house, and make Gogo paint the
quarterings over again for us, and look over his shoulder.”

Happy thought, indeed ! We drank our coffee and
went straight to my old house, with the wish (immediate
father to the deed) that Gogo should be there, once more
engaged in his long-forgotten accomplishment of painting
coats of arms.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and we found
Gogo hard at work at a small table by an open window.
The floor was covered with old deeds and parchments and
family papers ; and le beau Pasquier, at another table,
was deep in his own pedigree, making notes on the margin
— an occupation in which he delighted — and unconsciously
humming as he did so. The sunny room was filled with
the penetrating soft sound of his voice, as a conservatory
is filled with the scent of its flowers.

By the strangest inconsistency my dear father, a
genuine republican at heart (for all his fancied loyalty to
the white lily of the Bourbons), a would-be scientist, who
in reality was far more impressed by a clever and indus¬
trious French mechanic than by a prince (and would, I

THE PASQUIER PEDIGREE.

314

PETER I BEETS ON

think, have preferred the former’s friendship and society),
yet took both a pleasure and a pride in his quaint old
parchments and obscure quarterings. So would I,
perhaps, if things had gone differently with me- — for what
true democrat, however intolerant of such weakness in
others, ever thinks lightly of his own personal claims to
aristocratic descent, shadowy as these may be ?

He was fond of such proverbs and aphorisms as
“ noblesse oblige,” “ bon sang ne sait mentir,” “ bon chien
chasse de race,” etc., and had even invented a little
aphorism of his own, to comfort him when he was extra
hard up, “ bon gentilhomme n’a jamais honte de la misere.”
All of which sayings, to do him justice, he reserved for home
consumption exclusively, and he would have been the first
to laugh on hearing them in the mouth of any one else.

Of his one great gift, the treasure in his throat, he
thought absolutely nothing at all.

“ Ce que c’est que de nous 1 ”

Gogo was colouring the quarterings of the Pasquier
family — la maison de Pasquier, as it was called — in a
printed book (. Armorial General du Maine et deT Anjou),
according to the instructions that were given underneath.
He used one of Madame Liard’s three-sou boxes, and the
tints left much to be desired.

We looked over his shoulder and read the picturesque
old jargon, which sounds even prettier and more com¬
forting and more idiotic in French than in English. It
ran thus : —

“ Pasquier (branche des Seigneurs de la Mariere et du
Plirel), party de 4 pieces et coupe de 2.

“ Au premier, de Herault, qui est ecartele de gueules
et d’argent.

PETER IBBETSON

3i5

“ Au deux, de Budes, qui est d’or au pin de sinople.

“ Au trois, d’Aubery — qui est d’azur a trois croissants
d’argent.

“ Au quatre, de Busson, qui est d’argent au lyon de
sable armb couronne et lampasse d’or.” And so on,
through the other quarterings : Bigot, Epinay, Malestroit,
Mathefelon. And finally, “ Sur le tout, de Pasquier qui
est d’or a trois lyons d’azur, au franc quartier ecartele des
royaumes de Castille et de Leon.”

Presently my mother came home from the English
chapel in the Rue Marbceuf, where she had been with
Sarah, the English maid. Lunch was announced, and we
were left alone with the family papers. With infinite
precautions, for fear of blurring the dream, we were able
to find what we wanted to find — namely, that we were
the great-great-grandchildren and only possible living de¬
scendants of Gatienne, the fair glass-maker and composer
of “ Le Chant du Triste Commensal.”

Thus runs the descent : —

Jean Aubery, Seigneur du Brail, married Anne Busson. His daughter,
Gatienne Aubery, Dame du Brail, married Mathurin Budes, Seigneur
de Verny le Moustier et de Monhoudeard.

Anne Budes, Dame de Verny le
Moustier, married Guy Herault,
Comte de Boismorinel.

Jeanne Franjoise Herault de Bois¬
morinel married Francois Pasquier
de la Mariere.

Jean Pasquier de la Mariere married
Catharine Ibbetson-Biddulph.

Pierre Pasquier de la Mariere ( alias
Peter Ibbetson, convict).

Jeanne Budes, Dame du Brail et
de Monhoudeard, married Ulric
Seraskier.

Otto Seraskier, violinist, married
Teresa Pulci.

Johann Seraskier, M.D., married
Laura Desmond.

Mary Seraskier, Duchess of Towers.

3 16

PETER IBBETSON

We walked back to “ Magna sed Apta ” in great joy,
and there we celebrated our newly-discovered kinship by
a simple repast, out of my repertoire this time. It con¬
sisted of oysters from Rules’s in Maiden Lane, when they
were sixpence a dozen, and bottled stout ( Teau in' en vient
a la bouche ) ; and we spent the rest of the hours allotted
to us that night in evolving such visions as we could from
the old tune “ Le Chant du Triste Commensal,” with
varying success ; she humming it, accompanying herself on
the piano, in her masterly, musician-like way, with one
hand, and seeing all that I saw by holding my hand with
the other.

By slow degrees the scenes and people evoked grew less
dim, and whenever the splendid and important lady, whom
we soon identified for certain as Gatienne, our common
great-great-grandmother, appeared — “ la belle verriere de
Verny le Moustier ” — she was more distinct than the
others ; no doubt because we both had part and parcel in
her individuality, and also because her individuality was so
strongly marked.

And before I was called away at the inexorable hour,
we had the supreme satisfaction of seeing her play the
fiddle to a shadowy company of patched and powdered
and bewigged ladies and gentlemen, who seemed to take
much sympathetic delight in her performance, and actually,
even, of just hearing the thin unearthly tones of that most
original and exquisite melody, “ Le Chant du Triste Com¬
mensal,” to a quite inaudible accompaniment on the spinet
by her daughter, evidently Anne Herault, Comtesse de
Boismorinel {nee Budes), while the small child Jeanne de
Boismorinel (afterward Dame Pasquier de la Mariere)
listened with dreamy rapture.

PETER I BEETS ON

3i7

And just as Mary had said, she played her fiddle with
its body downward, and resting on her knees, as though
it had been an undersized ’cello. I then vaguely remem¬
bered having dreamed of such a figure when a small child.

LA BELI.E VERRIERE.

Within twenty-four hours of this strange adventure the
practical and business - like Maiy had started, in the
flesh and with her maid, for that part of France where
these, my ancestors, had lived, and within a fortnight she
had made herself mistress ot all my French family histoiy,.

PETER IB BETS ON

3 iS

and had visited such of the different houses of my kin as
were still in existence.

The turreted castle of my childish dreams, which, with
the adjacent glass -factory, was still called Verny le
Moustier, was one of these. She found it in the possession
of a certain Count Hector du Chamorin, whose grand¬
father had purchased it at the beginning of the century.

He had built an entirely new plant, and made it one
of the first glass-factories in Western France. But the old
turreted corps de logis still remained, and his foreman lived
there with his wife and family. The pigeonnier had been
pulled down to make room for a shed with a steam-engine,
and the whole aspect of the place was revolutionised ; but
the stream and water-mill (the latter a mere picturesque
ruin) were still there ; the stream was, however, little more
than a ditch, some ten feet deep and twenty broad, with
a fringe of gnarled and twisted willows and alders, many
of them dead.

It was called “ Le Brail,” and had given its name to
my great-great-grandmother’s property, whence it had
issued thirty miles away (and many hundred years ago) ; but
the old Chateau du Brail, the manor of the Auberys,
had become a farmhouse.

The Chateau de la Mariere, in its walled park, and
with its beautiful, tall, hexagonal tower, dated 1550, and
visible for miles around, was now a prosperous cider
brewery ; it is still, and lies on the high-road from Angers
to Le Mans.

The old forest of Boismorinel that had once belonged

o

to the family of Herault was still in existence; charcoal
burners were to be found in its depths, and a stray roebuck
or two ; but no more wolves and wild-boars as in the olden

PETER IBBETSON

3 1 9

time. And where the old castle had been now stood the
new railway station of Boismorinel et Saint Maixent.

Most of such Budes, Bussons, Heraults, Auberys, and
Pasquiers, as were still to be found in the country, probably
distant kinsmen of Mary s and mine, were lawyeis, doctois,
or priests, or had gone into trade and become lespectably
uninteresting ; such as they were, they would scarcely
have cared to claim kinship with such as I.

But a hundred years ago and more these were names
of importance in Maine and Anjou ; their bearers were

descended for the most part from younger branches of

houses which in the Middle Ages had intermarried with all
there was of the best in France, and although they were
looked down upon by the noblesse of the court and

Versailles, as were all the provincial nobility, they held

their own well in their own country ; feasting, hunting,
and shooting with each other ; dancing and fiddling and
making love and intermarrying ; and blowing glass, and
growing richer and richer, till the Revolution came and
blew them and their glass into space, and with them many
greater than themselves, but few better. And all record
of them and of their doings, pleasant and genial people as
they were, is lost, and can only be recalled by a dream.

Verny le Moustier was not the least interesting of

these old manors.

It had been built three hundred years ago, on the site
of a still older monastery (whence its name) ; the ruined
walls of the old abbey were (and are) still extant in the
house garden, covered with apricot and pear and peach
trees which had been sown or planted by our common

ancestress when she was a biide.

Count Hector, who took a great pleasure in explaining

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all the past history of the place to Mary, had built himself
a fine new house in what remained of the old park, and a
quarter of a mile away from the old manor-house. Every
room of the latter was shown to her ; old wood panels still
remained, prettily painted in a bygone fashion ; old
documents, and parchment deeds, and leases concerning
fishponds, farms, and the like, were brought out for her
inspection, signed by my grandfather Pasquier, my great¬
grandfather Boismorinel, and our great-great-grandmother
and her husband, Mathurin Budes, the lord of Verny le
Moustier ; and the tradition of Gatienne, la belle Verriere
(also nicknamed la reine de Hongrie, it seems), still lingered
in the county ; and many old people still remembered,
more or less correctly, “ Le Chant du Triste Commensal,”
which a hundred years ago had been in everybody’s mouth.

She was said to have been the tallest and handsomest
woman in Anjou, of an imperious will and very masculine
character, but immensely popular among rich and poor
alike ; of indomitable energy, and with a finger in every
pie ; but always more for the good of others than her
own — a typical, managing, business-like Frenchwoman,
and an exquisite musician to boot.

Such was our common ancestress, from whom, no
doubt, we drew our love of music and our strange, almost
hysterical susceptibility to the power of sound ; from
whom had issued those two born nightingales of our race
— Seraskier, the violinist, and my father, the singer.
And strange to say, her eyebrows met at the bridge of
her nose, just like mine — and from under them beamed
the luminous, black -fringed, gray-blue eyes of Mary,
that suffered eclipse whenever their owners laughed or
smiled !

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321

During this interesting journey of Mary’s in the flesh,
we met every night at “ Magna sed Apta ” in the spirit,
as usual ; and I was made to participate in every incident
of it.

We sat by the magic window, and had for our enter¬
tainment, now the Verrerie de Verny le Moustier in its
present state, all full of modern life, colour, and sound,
steam and gas, as she had seen it a few hours before ;
now the old chateau as it was a hundred years ago ; dim
and indistinct, as though seen by near-sighted eyes at the
close of a gray misty afternoon in late autumn through a
blurred window-pane, with busy but silent shadows moving
about — silent, because at first we could not hear their
speech ; it was too thin for our mortal ears, even in
this dream within our dream ! Only Gatienne, the
authoritative and commanding Gatienne, was faintly
audible.

Then we would go down and mix with them. Thus,
at one moment, we would be in the midst of a charming
old-fashioned French family group of shadows : Gatienne,
with her lovely twin-daughters Jeanne and Anne, and her
gardeners round her, all training young peach and apricot
trees against what still remained of the ancient buttresses
and walls of the Abbaye de Verny le Moustier — all this
more than a hundred years ago — the pale sun of a long-
past noon casting the fainter shadows of these faint
shadows on the shadowy garden-path.

Then, presto ! Changing the scene as one changes a
slide in a magic-lantern, we would skip a century, and
behold !

Another French family group, equally charming, on
the self-same spot, but in the garb of to-day, and no

Y

OUR GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER

PETER IB PETS ON

323

longer shadowy or mute by any means. Little trees
have grown big ; big trees have disappeared to make
place for industrious workshops and machinery ; but the
old abbey walls have been respected, and gay, genial
father, and handsome mother, and lovely daughters, all
pressing on “la belle Duchesse Anglaise ’’ peaches and
apricots of her great-great-grandmother’s growing.

For this amiable family of the Chamorin became
devoted to Mary in a very short time — that is, the very
moment they first saw her ; and she never forgot their
kindness, courtesy, and hospitality ; they made her feel in
five minutes as though she had known them for many years.

I may as well state here that a few months later she
received from Mademoiselle du Chamorin (with a charming
letter) the identical violin that had once belonged to la
belle Verriere, and which Count Hector had found in the
possession of an old farmer — the great-grandson of
Gatienne’s coachman — and had purchased, that he might
present it as a New Year’s gift to her descendant, the
Duchess of Towers.

It is now mine, alas ! I cannot play it ; but it amuses
and comforts me to hold in my hand, when broad and
wide awake, an instrument that Mary and I have so
often heard and seen in our dream, and which has so
often rung in bygone days with the strange melody that
has had so great an influence on our lives. Its aspect,
shape, and colour, every mark and stain of it, were familiar
to us before we had ever seen it with the bodily eye, or
handled it with the hand of flesh. It thus came straight
to us out of the dim and distant past, heralded by the
ghost of itself !

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To return. Gradually, by practice and the concen¬
tration of our united will, the old-time figures grew to gain
substance and colour, and their voices became per¬
ceptible ; till at length there arrived a day when we could
move among them, and hear them and see them as
distinctly as we could our own immediate progenitors
close by — as Gogo and Mimsey, as Monsieur le Major,
and the rest.

The child who went about hand in hand with the
white-haired lady (whose hair was only powdered) and
fed the pigeons was my grandmother, Jeanne de Bois-
morinel (who married Francois Pasquier de la Mariere).
It was her father who wore red heels to his shoes,
and made her believe she could manufacture little
cocked hats in coloured glass ; she had lived again in
me whenever, as a child, I had dreamed that exquisite
dream.

I could now evoke her at will ; and, with her, many
buried memories were called out of nothingness into life.

Among other wonderful things, I heard the red-heeled
gentleman, M. de Boismorinel (my great-grandfather),
sing beautiful old songs by Lulli and others to the spinet,
which he played charmingly — a rare accomplishment in
those days. And lo ! these tunes were tunes that had
risen oft and unbidden in my consciousness, and I had
fondly imagined that I had composed them myself — little
impromptus of my own. And lo, again ! His voice,
thin, high, nasal, but very sympathetic and musical, was
that never-still small voice that has been singing unremit¬
tingly for more than half a century in the unswept,
ungarnished corner of my brain where all the cobwebs

are.

PETER IB BETS ON

325

And these cobwebs ?

Well, I soon became aware, by deeply diving into my
inner consciousness when awake and at my daily prison
toil (which left the mind singularly clear and free), that 1
was full, quite full, of slight elusive reminiscences which
were neither of my waking life nor of my dream life with

THAT NEVER-STILL SMALL VOICE.

Mary : reminiscences of sub- dreams during sleep, and
belonging to the period of my childhood and early youth ;
sub-dreams which no doubt had been forgotten when I
woke, at which time I could only remember the surface
dreams that had just preceded my waking.

Ponds, rivers, bridges, roads and streams, avenues of
trees, arbours, windmills and water-mills, corridors and

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326

rooms, church functions, village fairs, festivities, men and
women and animals, all of another time and of a country
where I had never set my foot, were familiar to my
remembrance. I had but to dive deep enough into my¬
self, and there they were ; and when night came, and
sleep, and “ Magna sed Apta,” I could re-evoke them
all, and make them real and complete for Mary and
myself.

That these subtle reminiscences were true antenatal
memories was soon proved by my excursions with Mary
into the past ; and her experience of such reminiscences,
and their corroboration, were just as my own. We have
heard and seen her grandfather play the “ Chant du Triste
Commensal ” to crowded concert-rooms, applauded to the
echo by men and women long dead and buried and for¬
gotten !

Now, I believe such reminiscences to form part of the
sub-consciousness of others, as well as Mary’s and mine,
and that by perseverance in self- research many will
succeed in reaching them — perhaps even more easily and
completely than we have done.

It is something like listening for the overtones of a
musical note ; we do not hear them at first, though they
are there, clamouring for recognition ; and when at last
we hear them, we wonder at our former obtuseness, so
distinct are they.

Let a man with an average ear, however uncultivated,
strike the C low down on a good pianoforte, keeping his
foot on the loud pedal. At first he will hear nothing but
the rich fundamental note C.

But let him become expectant of certain other notes ;
for instance, of the C in the octave immediately above, then

PETER IB BETS ON

327

the G immediately above that, then the E higher still ; he
will hear them all in time as clearly as the note originally
struck ; and, finally, a shrill little ghostly and quite im¬
portunate B flat in the treble will pulsate so loudly in his
ear that he will never cease to hear it whenever that low
C is sounded.

By just such a process, only with infinitely more pains
(and in the end with what pleasure and surprise), will he
grow aware in time of a dim, latent, antenatal experi¬
ence that underlies his own personal experience of this
life.

We also found that we were able not only to assist as
mere spectators at such past scenes as I have described
(and they were endless), but also to identify ourselves
occasionally with the actors, and cease for the moment
to be Mary Seraskier and Peter Ibbetson. Notably was
this the case with Gatienne. We could each be Gatienne
for a space (though never both of us together), and when
we resumed our own personality again we carried back
with it a portion of hers, never to be lost again — a strange
phenomenon, if the reader will but think of it, and con¬
stituting the germ of a comparative personal immortality
on earth.

At my work in prison, even, I could distinctly re¬
member having been Gatienne ; so that for the time being,
Gatienne, a provincial P'renchwoman who lived a hundred
years ago, was contentedly undergoing penal servitude in
an English jail during the latter half of the nineteenth
century.

A questionable privilege, perhaps.

But to make up for it, when she was not alive in me she
could be brought to life in Mary (only in one at a time, it

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seemed), and travel by rail and steamer, and know the
uses of gas and electricity, and read the telegrams of “ our
special correspondents ” in the Times , and taste her
nineteenth century under more favourable conditions.

Thus we took la belle Verriere by turns, and she saw
and heard things she little dreamed of a hundred years ago.
Besides, she was made to share in the glories of “ Magna
seel Apta.”

And the better we knew her the more we loved her ;
she was a very nice person to descend from, and Mary and
I were well agreed that we could not have chosen a better
great-great-grandmother, and wondered what each of our
seven others was like, for we had fifteen of these between
us, and as many great-great-grandfathers.

Thirty great-great-grandfathers and great-great-grand¬
mothers had made us what we were ; it was no good
fighting against them and the millions at their backs.

Which of them all, strong, but gentle and shy, and
hating the very sight of blood, yet saw scarlet when he was
roused, and thirsted for the blood of his foe ?

Which of them all, passionate and tender, but proud,
high-minded, and chaste, and with the world at her feet,
was yet ready to “ throw her cap over the windmills,” and
give up all for love, deeming the world well lost?

1 hat we could have thus identified ourselves, only
more easily and thoroughly, with our own’more immediate
progenitors, we felt certain enough. But after mature
thought we resolved to desist from any further attempt at
such transfusion of identity, for sacred reasons of discretion
which the reader will appreciate.

But that this will be done some day (now the way has

PETER IB BETS ON

3^9

been made clear), and also that the inconveniences and
possible abuses of such a faculty will be obviated or
minimised by the ever-active ingenuity of mankind, is to
my mind a foregone conclusion.

It is too valuable a faculty to be left in abeyance, and
I leave the probable and possible consequences of its
culture to the reader’s imagination — merely pointing out
to him (as an inducement to cultivate that faculty in
himself) that if anything can keep us well within the thorny
path that leads to happiness and virtue, it is the certainty
that those who come after us will remember having been
ourselves, if only in a dream — even as the newly-hatched
chicken has remembered in its egg the use of eyes and ears
and the rest, out of the fulness of its long antenatal ex¬
perience ; and, more fortunate than the helpless human
infant in this respect, can enter on the business and
pleasures of its brief, irresponsible existence at once !

Wherefore, O reader, if you be but sound in mind and
body, it most seriously behoves you (not only for the sake of
those who come after you, but your own) to go forth and
multiply exceedingly, to marry early and much and often,
and to select the very best of your kind in the opposite
sex for this most precious, excellent, and blessed purpose ;
that all your future reincarnations (and hers), however brief,
may be many ; and bring you not only joy and peace and
pleasurable wonderment and recreation, but the priceless
guerdon of well-earned self-approval !

For whoever remembers having once been you, wakes
you for the nonce out of — nirvana, shall we say ? His
strength, his beauty, and his wit are yours ; and the
felicity he derives from them in this earthly life is for you

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330

to share, whenever this subtle remembrance of you stirs in
his consciousness ; and you can never quite sink back again
into— nirvana, till all your future wakers shall cease to be !

It is like a little old-fashioned French game we used to
play at Passy, and which is not bad for a dark rainy after¬
noon : people sit all round in a circle, and each hands on
to his neighbour a spill or a lucifer match just blown out,
but in which a little live spark still lingers, saying, as he
does so —

“ Petit bonhomme vit encore ! ”

And he, in whose hand the spark becomes extinct, has to
pay forfeit and retire — Helas ! petit bonhomme n’est plus !

. . . Pauv’ petit bonhomme ! ”

Ever thus may a little live spark of your own in¬
dividual consciousness, when the full, quick flame of your
actual life here below is extinguished, be handed down
mildly incandescent to your remotest posterity. May it
never quite go out — it need not ! May you ever be able
to say of yourself, from generation to generation, “ Petit
bonhomme vit encore ! ” and still keep one finger at least
in the pleasant earthly pie !

And, reader, remember so to order your life on earth
that the memory of you (like that of Gatienne, la belle
Verriere de Verny le Moustier) may smell sweet, and
blossom in the dust — a memory pleasant to recall — to
this end that its recallings and its recallers may be as
numerous as filial love and ancestral pride can make
them. . . .

And oh ! looking backwards (as we did), be tender to
the failings of your forbears, who little guessed when alive
that the secrets of their long- buried hearts should one

PETER IB BETS ON

day be revealed to you ! Their faults are really your own,
like the faults of your innocent, ignorant childhood, so to
say, when you did not know better, as you do now ; or
will soon, thanks to

“Le Chant du Triste Commensal !”

Wherefore, also, beware and be warned in time, ye
tenth transmitters of a foolish face, ye reckless begetters
of diseased or puny bodies, with hearts and brains to
match 1 Far down the corridors of time shall club-footed
retribution follow in your footsteps, and overtake you at
every turn ! Most remorselessly, most vindictively, will you
be aroused, in sleepless hours of unbearable misery (future¬
waking nightmares), from your false, uneasy dream of
death ; to participate in an inheritance of woe still worse
than yours — worse with all the accumulated interest of
long years and centuries of iniquitous self-indulgence, and
poisoned by the sting of a self-reproach that shall never
cease till the last of your tainted progeny dies out, and
finds his true nirvana, and yours, in the dim, forgetful
depths of interstellar space !

And here let me most conscientiously affirm that,
partly from my keen sense of the solemnity of such an
appeal, and the grave responsibility I take upon myself in
making it ; but more especially in order to impress you,
O reader, with the full significance of this apocalyptic and
somewhat minatory utterance (that it may haunt your
finer sense during your midnight hours of introspective self-
communion), I have done my best, my very best, to couch it
in the obscurest and most unintelligible phraseology I could

PETER IB BETS ON

invent. If I have failed to do this, if I have uninten¬
tionally made any part of my meaning clear, if I have
once deviated by mistake into what might almost appear
like sense — mere common sense — it is the fault of my
half-French and wholly imperfect education. I am but
a poor scribe !

Thus roughly have I tried to give an account of this,
the most important of our joint discoveries in the strange
new world revealed to us by chance. More than twenty
years of our united lives have been devoted to the
following out of this slender clue — with what surprising
results will, I trust, be seen in subsequent volumes.

We have not had time to attempt the unravelling of
our English ancestry as well — the Crays and the Des¬
monds, the Ibbetsons and Biddulphs, etc. — which connect
us with the past history of England. The farther we got
back into France, the more fascinating it became, and
the easier — and the more difficult to leave.

What an unexampled experience has been ours ! To
think that we have seen — actually seen — de nos propres
yenx vu — Napoleon Bonaparte himself, the arch-arbiter
of the world, on the very pinnacle of his pride and power ;
in his little cocked hat and gray double-breasted overcoat,
astride his white charger, with all his staff around him,
just as he has been so often painted ! Surely the most
impressive, unforgettable, ineffaceable little figure in all
modern history, and clothed in the most cunningly ima¬
gined make-up that ever theatrical costumier devised to
catch the public eye and haunt the public memory for
ages and ages yet to come !

It is a singularly new, piquant, and exciting sensation to

PETER IBBETSON

333

stare in person, and as in the present, at bygone actualities,
and be able to foretell the past and remember the future
all in one !

To think that we have even beheld him before he was
First Consul — slim and pale, his lank hair dangling
down his neck and cheeks, if possible more impressive
still ! as innocent as a child of all that lay before him !
Europe at his feet — the throne — Waterloo — St. Helena —
the Iron English Duke — the pinnacle turned into a pillory
so soon !

“ O corse a cheveux plats, que la France etait belle
Au grand soleil de Messidor ! ”

And Mirabeau and Robespierre, and Danton and Marat
and Charlotte Corday ! we have seen them too ; and
Marie Antoinette and the fishwives, and “ the beautiful
head of Lamballe ” (on its pike !) . . . and watched the
tumbrils go by to the Place, du Carrousel , and gazed at
the guillotine by moonlight — silent and terror-stricken,
our very hearts in our mouths. . . .

And in the midst of it all, ridiculous stray memories
of Madame Tussaud would come stealing into our ghastly
dream of blood and retribution, mixing up past and
present and future in a manner not to be described, and
making us smile through our tears !

Then we were present (several times !) at the taking of
the Bastille, and indeed witnessed most of the stormy
scenes of that stormy time, with our Carlyle in our hands ;
and often have we thought, and with many a hearty laugh,
what fun it must be to write immortal histories, with never
an eye-witness to contradict you !

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PETER IB PETS ON

And going farther back we have haunted Versailles in
the days of its splendour, and drunk our fill of all the
glories of the court of Louis XIV. !

What imposing ceremonials, what stupendous royal
functions have we not attended — where all the beauty,
wit, and chivalry of France, prostrate with reverence and
awe (as in the very presence of a god), did loyal homage
to the greatest monarch this world has ever seen — while
we sat by, on the very steps of his throne, as he solemnly
gave out his royal command ! and laughed aloud under
his very nose — the shallow, silly, pompous little snob — and
longed to pull it ! and tried to disinfect his greasy, civet-
scented, full-bottomed wig with wholesome whiffs from a
nineteenth-century regalia !

Nothing of that foolish but fascinating period escaped
us. Town, hamlet, river, forest, and field ; royal palace,
princely castle, and starving peasant’s hut ; pulpit, stage,
and salon ; port, camp, and market-place ; tribunal and
university ; factory, shop, studio, smithy ; tavern and
gambling -hell and den of thieves ; convent and jail,
torture-chamber and gibbet-close, and what not all !

And at every successive step our once desponding,
over-anxious, over-burthened latter-day souls have swelled
with joy and pride and hope at the triumphs of our own
day all along the line ! Yea, even though we have heard
the illustrious Bossuet preach, and applauded Moliere in
one of his own plays, and gazed at and listened to (and
almost forgiven) Racine and Corneille, and Boileau, and
Fenelon, and the good Lafontaine— those five ruthless
persecutors of our own innocent French childhood !

And, still ascending the stream of time, we have
hobnobbed with Montaigne and Rabelais, and been

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o "» r

personally bored by Malherbe, and sat at Ronsard’s feet,
and ridden by Froissart’s side, and slummed with Francois
Villon — in what enchanted slums ! . . .

Francois Villon ! Think of that, ye fond British
bards and bardlets of to-day — ye would-be translators
and imitators of that never-to-be-translated, never-to-be-
imitated lament, the immortal Ballade des Dames du Temps
jadis !

And while I speak of it, I may as well mention that
we have seen them too, or some of them — those fair ladies
he had never seen, and who had already melted away
before his coming, like the snows of yester year, les neiges
d'antan ! Bertha, with the big feet ; Joan of Arc, the
good Lorrainer (what would she think of her native
province now ?); the very learned Heloi'se, for love of whom
one Peter Esbaillart, or Abelard (a more luckless Peter than
even I !), suffered such cruel indignities at monkish hands ;
and that haughty, naughty queen, in her Tower of Nesle,

“ Oui commanda que Buridan

Fut jecte en ung Sac en Seine. . .

Yes, we have seen them with the eye, and heard them
speak and sing, and scold and jest, and laugh and weep,
and even pray ! And I have sketched them, as you shall
see some day, good reader ! And let me tell you that
their beauty was by no means maddening : the standard
of female loveliness has gone up, even in France ! Even
la tres sage Helots was scarcely worth such a sacrifice as
— but there ! Possess your soul in patience ; all that, and
it is all but endless, will appear in due time, with such
descriptions and illustrations as I flatter myself the world
has never bargained for, and will value as it has never
valued any historical records yet !

336

PETER IB BET SON

Day after day, for more than twenty years, Mary has
kept a voluminous diary (in a cipher known to us both) ;
it is now my property, and in it every detail of our long
journey into the past has been set down.

Contemporaneously, day by day (during the leisure

accorded to me by the kindness of Governor - ), I have

drawn over again from memory the sketches of people
and places I was able to make straight from nature
during those wonderful nights at “ Magna sed Apta.” I
can guarantee the correctness of them, and the fidelity of
the likenesses ; no doubt their execution leaves much to
be desired.

Both her task and mine (to the future publication of
which this autobiography is but an introduction) have
been performed with the minutest care and conscientious¬
ness ; no time or trouble has been spared. For instance,
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew alone, which we were
able to study from seventeen different points of view, cost
us no less than two months’ unremitting labour.

As we reached farther and farther back through the
stream of time, the task became easier in a way ; but we
have had to generalise more, and often, for want of time
and space, to use types in lieu of individuals. For with
every successive generation the number of our progenitors
increased in geometrical progression (as in the problem of
the nails in the horseshoe), until a limit of numbers was
reached — namely, the sum of the inhabitants of the
terrestrial globe. In the seventh century there was not a
person living in France (not to mention Europe) who was
not in the line of our direct ancestry, excepting, of course,
those who had died without issue and were mere
collaterals.

PETER IB BETS ON

337

We have even just been able to see, as in a glass
darkly, the faint shadows of the Mammoth and the cave
bear, and of the man who hunted and killed and ate them,
that he might live and prevail.

The Mammoth !

We have walked round him and under him as he
browsed, and even through him where he lay and rested,
as one walks through the dun mist in a little hollow on a
still, damp morning ; and turning round to look (at the
proper distance) there was the unmistakable shape again,
just thick enough to blot out the lines of the dim primeval
landscape beyond, and make a hole in the blank sky. A
dread silhouette, thrilling our hearts with awe- — blurred
and indistinct like a composite photograph — merely the
type, as it had been seen generally by all who had ever
seen it at all, every one of whom ( exceptis excipiendis) was
necessarily an ancestor of ours, and of every man now living.

There it stood or reclined, the monster, like the
phantom of an overgrown hairy elephant ; we could
almost see, or fancy we saw, the expression of his dull
cold antediluvian eye— almost perceive a suggestion of
russet-brown in his fell.

Mary firmly believed that we should have got in time
to our hairy ancestor with pointed ears and a tail, and
have been able to ascertain whether he was arboreal in
his habits or not. With what passionate interest she
would have followed and studied and described him !
And I ! With what eager joy, and yet with what filial
reverence, I would have sketched his likeness — with what
conscientious fidelity as far as my poor powers would
allow! (For all we know to the contrary he may have
been the most attractive and engaging little beast that

z

338

PETER IBBETSON

ever was, and far less humiliating to descend from than
many a titled yahoo of the present day.)

Fate, alas, has willed that it should be otherwise, and
on others, duly trained, must devolve the delightful task

THE MAMMOTH.

of following up the clue we have been so fortunate as to
discover.

And now the time has come for me to tell as quickly
as I may the story of my bereavement — a bereavement
so immense that no man, living or dead, can ever have
experienced the like ; and to explain how it is that I have
not only survived it and kept my wits (which some people
seem to doubt), but am here calmly and cheerfully writing
my reminiscences, just as if I were a famous Academician,

PETER IB RETS ON

339

actor, novelist, statesman, or general diner-out- — blandly
garrulous and well satisfied with myself and the world.

During the latter years of our joint existence, Mary
and I, engrossed by our fascinating journey through the
centuries, had seen little or nothing of each other’s
outer lives, or rather I had seen nothing of hers (for she
still came back sometimes with me to my jail) ; I only
saw her as she chose to appear in our dream.

Perhaps at the bottom of this there may have been a
feminine dislike on her part to be seen growing older, for
at “ Magna sed Apta ” we were always twenty-eight or
thereabouts — at our very best. We had truly discovered
the fountain of perennial youth, and had drunk thereof !
And in our dream we always felt even younger than we
looked ; we had the buoyancy of children and their
freshness.

Often had we talked of death and separation and the
mystery beyond, but only as people do for whom such
contingencies are remote ; yet in reality time flew as
rapidly for us as for others, although we were less sensible
of its flight.

There came a day when Mary’s exuberant vitality, so
constantly overtaxed, broke down, and she was ill for a
while ; although that did not prevent our meeting as usual,
and there was no perceptible difference in her when we
met. But I am certain that in reality she was never
quite the same again as she had been, and the dread
possibility of parting any day would come up oftener in
our talk ; in our minds, only too often, and our minds
were as one.

She knew that if I died first, everything I had brought
into Magna sed Apta ” (and little it was) would be there

340

PETER IB BETS ON

no more ; even to my body, ever lying supine on the
couch by the enchanted window, if she had woke by
chance to our common life before I had, or remained after
I had been summoned away to my jail.

And I knew that, if she died, not only her body on
the adjacent couch, but all “ Magna sed Apta ” itself would

WAITING.

melt away, and be as if it had never been, with its endless
galleries and gardens and magic windows, and all the
wonders it contained.

Sometimes I felt a hideous nervous dread, on sinking
into sleep, lest I should find it was so, and the ever-
heavenly delight of waking there, and finding all as usual,
was but the keener. I would kneel by her inanimate
body, and gaze at her with a passion of love that seemed

PETER IB BETS ON

made up of all the different kinds of love a human being
can feel ; even the love of a dog for his mistress was in it,
and that of a wild beast for its young.

With eager, tremulous anxiety and aching suspense I
would watch for the first light breath from her lips, the
first faint tinge of carmine in her cheek, that always heralded
her coming back to life. And when she opened her eyes
and smiled, and stretched her long young limbs in the joy of
waking, what transports of gratitude and relief!

Ah me ! the recollection !

At last a terrible unforgettable night arrived when my
presentiment was fulfilled.

I awoke in the little lumber-room of “ Parva seel
Apta,” where the door had always been that led to and
from our palace of delight ; but there was no door any
longer — nothing but a blank wall. . . .

I woke back at once in my cell, in such a state as it
is impossible to describe. I felt there must be some
mistake, and after much time and effort was able to sink
into sleep again, but with the same result : the blank wall,
the certainty that “ Magna sed Apta ” was closed for ever,
that Mary was dead ; and then the terrible jump back into
my prison life again.

This happened several times during the night, and
when the morning dawned I was a raving madman. I
took the warder who first came (attracted by my cries
of “ Mary ! ”) for Colonel Ibbetson, and tried to kill
him, and should have done so, but that he was a very
big man, almost as powerful as myself and only half my age.

Other warders came to the rescue, and I took them
all for Ibbetsons, and fought like the maniac I was.

342

PETER I BEETS ON

When I came to myself, after long horrors and brain-
fever and what not, I was removed from the jail infirmary
to another place, where I am now.

I had suddenly recovered my reason, and woke to
mental agony such as I, who had stood in the dock and
been condemned to a shameful death, had never even
dreamed of.

I soon had the knowledge of my loss confirmed, and
heard (it had been common talk for more than nine
days) that the famous Mary, Duchess of Towers, had

met her death at the - station of the Metropolitan

Railway.

A woman, carrying a child, had been jostled by a
tipsy man just as a train was entering the station, and
dropped her child on to the metals. She tried to jump after
it but was held back, and Mary, who had just come up,
jumped in her stead, and by a miracle of strength and
agility was just able to clutch the child and get on to the
six-foot way as the engine came by.

She was able to carry the child to the end of the
train, and was helped on to the platform. It was her
train, and she got into a carriage, but she was dead before
it reached the next station. Her heart (which, it seems,
had been diseased for some time) had stopped, and all was
over.

So died Mary Seraskier, at fifty-three.

I lay for many weeks convalescent in body, but in a
state of dumb, dry, tearless despair, to which there never
came a moment’s relief, except in the dreamless sleep I
got from chloral, which was given to me in large quantities
— and then, the waking !

PETER IB BETS ON

343

I never spoke nor answered a question, and hardly
ever stirred. I had one fixed idea — that of self-destruction ;
and after two unsuccessful attempts, I was so closely
bound and watched night and day that any further
attempt was impossible. They would not trust me with a
toothpick or a button or a piece of common packthread.

I tried to starve myself to death and refused all solid
food ; but an intolerable thirst (perhaps artificially brought
on) made it impossible for me to refuse any liquid that
was offered, and I was tempted with milk, beef-tea, port,
and sherry, and these kept me alive. . . .

I had lost all wish to dream.

At length, one afternoon, a strange, inexplicable,
overwhelming nostalgic desire came over me to see once
more the Mare d’Auteuil — only once ; to walk thither
for the last time through the Chaussee de la Muette, and
by the fortifications.

It grew upon me till it became a torture to wait for
bedtime, so frantic was my impatience.

When the long-wished-for hour arrived at last, I laid
myself down once more (as nearly as I could for my
bonds) in the old position I had not tried for so long ;
my will intent upon the Porte de la Muette, an old stone
gateway that separated the Grande Rue de Passy from
the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne — a kind of 1 emple
Bar.

It was pulled down forty-five years ago.

I soon found myself there, just where the Grande Rue
meets the Rue de la Pompe, and went through the arch
and looked toward the Bois.

It was a dull, leaden day in autumn ; few people were

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PETER IB BETS ON

about, but a gay repas de noces was being held at a little
restaurant on my right-hand side. It was to celebrate
the wedding of Achille Grigoux, the greengrocer, with
FHicite Lenormand, who had been the Seraskiers’ house¬
maid. I suddenly remembered all this, and that Mimsey
and Gogo were of the party — the latter, indeed, being
premier garcon d'honneur, on whom would soon devolve
the duty of stealing the bride’s garter, and cutting it up
into little bits to adorn the buttonholes of the male guests
before the ball began.

In an archway on my left some forlorn, worn-out old
rips, broken -kneed and broken -winded, were patiently
waiting, ready saddled and bridled, to be hired — Chloris,
Murat, Rigolette, and others : I knew and had ridden
them all nearly half a century ago. Poor old shadows of
the long-dead past, so lifelike and real and pathetic — it
“ split me the heart ” to see them !

A handsome young blue - coated, silver - buttoned
courier, of the name of Lami, came trotting along from
St. Cloud on a roan horse, with a great jingling of his
horse’s bells and clacking of his short-handled whip. He
stopped at the restaurant and called for a glass of white
wine, and, rising in his stirrups, shouted gaily for
Monsieur et Madame Grigoux. They appeared at the
first-floor window, looking very happy, and he drank their
health, and they his. I could see Gogo and Mimsey
in the crowd behind them, and mildly wondered again,
as I had so often wondered before, how I came to see
it all from the outside — from another point of view than
Gogo’s.

Then the courier bowed gallantly, and said, “ Bonne
chance ! ” and went trotting down the Grande Rue on his

PETER I BEETS ON

345

A VOT’ SANTE.

way to the Tuileries, and the wedding guests began to
sing : they sang a song beginning — -

“ II etait un petit navire
Qui n’avait jamais navigue. . .

346

PETER IBB El'S ON

I had quite forgotten it, and listened till the end, and
thought it very pretty ; and was interested in a dull,
mechanical way at discovering that it must be the original
of Thackeray’s famous ballad of “ Little Billee,” which i
did not hear till many years after.

When they came to the last verse —

“ Si cette histoire vous embete,

Nous allons la recommencer,”

I went on my way. This was my last walk in dreamland,
perhaps, and dream-hours are uncertain, and I would make
the most of them, and look about me.

I walked toward Ranelagh, a kind of casino, where
they used to give balls and theatrical performances on
Sunday and Thursday nights (and where afterward
Rossini spent the latter years of his life ; then it was
pulled down, I am told, to make room for many smart
little villas).

In the meadow opposite M. Erard’s park, Saindou’s
schoolboys were playing rounders — la balle au camp —
from which I concluded it was a Thursday afternoon, a
half-holiday ; if they had had clean shirts on (which they
had not) it would have been Sunday, and the holiday a
whole one.

I knew them all, and the two pious , or ushers, M.
Lartigue and le petit Casal ; but no longer cared for them
or found them amusing or interesting in the least.

Opposite the Ranelagh a few old hackney coachmen
were pacifically killing time by a game of bouchon —
knocking sous off a cork with other sous — great fat sous
and double sous long gone out of fashion. It is a very
good game, and I watched it for a while, and envied the
long-dead players.

PETER I BEETS ON

347

Close by was a small wooden shed, or baroque , prettily
painted and glazed, and ornamented at the top with little
tricolour flags ; it belonged to a couple of old ladies, Mere
Manette and Grandmere Manette — the two oldest women
ever seen. They were very keen about business, and
would not give credit for a centime — not even to English
boys. They were said to be immensely rich and quite
alone in the world. How very dead they must be now !
I thought. And I gazed at them and wondered at their
liveliness and the pleasure they took in living. They sold
many things : nougat, pain ci'epices , mirlitons, hoops,
drums, noisy battledores, and shuttlecocks ; and little ten-
sou hand-mirrors, neatly bound in zinc, that could open
and shut.

I looked at myself in one of these that was hanging
outside ; I was old and worn and gray- — my face badly
shaven — my hair almost white. I had never been old in
a dream before.

I walked through the gate in the fortifications on to
the outer Talus (which was quite bare in those days), in
the direction of the Mare d’Auteuil. The place seemed
very deserted and dull for a Thursday. It was a sad and
sober walk ; my melancholy was not to be borne — my
heart was utterly broken, and my body so tired I could
scarcely drag myself along. Never before had I known
in a dream what it was to be tired.

I gazed at the famous fortifications in all their brand-
new pinkness, the scaffoldings barely removed — some of
them still lying in the dry ditch between— and smiled to
think how little these brick and granite walls would avail
to keep the Germans out of Paris thirty years later
(twenty years ago). I tried to throw a stone across a

348

PETER IB BETS ON

narrow part, and found I could no longer throw stones ;
so I sat down and rested. How thin my legs were ! and
how miserably clad — in old prison trousers, greasy, stained,
and frayed, and ignobly kneed — and what boots !

Never had I been shabby in a dream before.

I SAT DOWN AND RESTED.

Why could not I, once for all, walk round to the
other side, and take a header a la hussarde off those lofty
bulwarks, and kill myself for good and all? Alas! I
should only blur the dream, and perhaps even wake in my
miserable strait-waistcoat. And I wanted to see the mare
once more, very badly.

This set me thinking. I would fill my pockets with
stones, and throw myself into the Mare d’Auteuil after I
had taken a last good look at it, and around. Perhaps

PETER IB BETS ON

349

the shock of emotion, in my present state of weakness,
might really kill me in my sleep. Who knows ? it was
worth trying, anyhow.

I got up and dragged myself to the mare. It was
deserted but for one solitary female figure, soberly clad in
black and gray, that sat motionless on the bench by the
old willow.

I walked slowly round in her direction, picking up
stones and putting them into my pockets, and saw that
she was gray-haired and middle-aged, with very dark eye¬
brows, and extremely tall, and that her magnificent eyes
were following me.

Then, as I drew nearer, she smiled and showed
gleaming white teeth, and her eyes crinkled and nearly
closed up as she did so.

“ Oh, my God ! ” I shrieked ; “ it is Mary Seraskier ! ”

I ran to her — I threw myself at her feet, and buried
my face in her lap, and there I sobbed like a hysterical
child, while she tried to soothe me as one soothes a child.

After a while I looked up into her face. It was old
and worn and gray, and her hair nearly white, like mine.
I had never seen her like that before ; she had always
been eight-and-twenty. But age became her well — she
looked so benignly beautiful and calm and grand that I
was awed — and quick, chill waves went down my back¬
bone.

Her dress and bonnet were old and shabby ; her
gloves had been mended — old kid gloves with fur about
the wrists. She drew them off, and took my hands and
made me sit beside her, and looked at me for a while with
all her might in silence.

35°

PETER IB BETS ON

At length she said : “ Gogo mio, I know all you have
been through by the touch of your hands. Does the
touch of mine tell you nothing ? ”

' ‘ IT IS MARY SERASKIER ! "

It told me nothing but her huge love for me, which
was all I cared for, and I said so.

She sighed, and said : “ I was afraid it would be like
this. The old circuit is broken, and can’t be restored —
not yet ! ”

We tried again hard ; but it was useless.

She looked round and about and up at the tree-tops,

PETER IB BETS ON

35 1

everywhere ; and then at me again, with great wistfulness,
and shivered, and finally began to speak ; with hesitation
at first, and in a manner foreign to her. But soon she
became apparently herself, and found her old swift smile
and laugh, her happy slight shrugs and gestures, and
quaint polyglot colloquialisms (which I omit, as I cannot
always spell them) ; her homely, simple ways of speech,
her fluent, magnetic energy, the winning and sympathetic
modulations of her voice, its quick humorous changes from
grave to gay — all that made everything she said so
suggestive of all she wanted to say besides.

“ Gogo, I knew you would come. I wished it ! How
dreadfully you have suffered ! How thin you are ! It
shocks me to see you ! But that will not be any more ;
we are going to change all that.

“ Gogo, you have no idea how difficult it has been for
me to come back, even for a few short hours, for I can’t
hold on very long. It is like hanging on to the window¬
sill by one’s wrists. This time it is Hero swimming to
Leander, or Juliet climbing up to Romeo.

“ Nobody has ever come back before.

“ I am but a poor husk of my former self, put together
at great pains for you to know me by. I could not make
myself again what I have always been to you. I had
to be content with this, and so must you. These are
the clothes I died in. But you knew me directly, dear Gogo.

“ I have come a long way — such a long way— to have
an abboccameiito with you. I had so many things to say.
And now we are both here, hand in hand as we used to
be, I can’t even understand what they were ; and if I
could, I couldn’t make you understand. But you will
know some day, and there is no hurry whatever.

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PETER IB BETS ON

“ Every thought you have had since I died, I know
already ; your share of the circuit is unbroken at least. I
know now why you picked up those stones and put them in
your pockets. You must never think of that again — you
never will. Besides, it would be of no use, poor Gogo ! ”

Then she looked up at the sky and all round her
again, and smiled in her old happy manner, and rubbed
her eyes with the backs of her hands, and seemed to settle
herself for a good long talk — an abboccainento !

Of all she said I can only give a few fragments —
whatever I can recall and understand when awake.
Wherever I have forgotten I will put a line of little
dots. Only when I sleep and dream can I recall and
understand the rest. It seems all very simple then. I
often say to myself, “ I will fix it well in my mind, and
put it into well-chosen words — her words — and learn
them by heart ; and then wake cautiously and remember
them, and write them all down in a book, so that they
shall do for others all they have done for me, and turn
doubt into happy certainty, and despair into patience and
hope and high elation.”

But the bell rings and I wake, and my memory plays
me false. Nothing remains but the knowledge that all
will be well for us all, and of such a kind that those who do
not sigh for the moon zvill be zvell content.

Alas, this knowledge : I cannot impart it to others.
Like many who have lived before me, I cannot prove— I
can only affirm. . . .

“ How odd and old-fashioned it feels,” she began, “ to
have eyes and ears again, and all that — little open windows

PETER IB BETS ON

on to what is near us. They are very clumsy contrivances !

I had already forgotten them.

“ Look, there goes our old friend, the water-rat, under
the bank — the old fat father — le bon gros p'ere — as we
used to call him. He is only a little flat picture moving
upside down in the opposite direction across the backs of
our eyes, and the farther he goes the smaller he seems.
A couple of hundred yards off we shouldn’t see him at all.
As it is, we can only see the outside of him, and that only
on one side at a time ; and yet he is full of important and
wonderful things that have taken millions of years to

make _ like us ! And to see him at all we have to look

straight at him — and then we can’t see what’s behind us
or around — and if it was dark we couldn’t see anything
whatever.

“ Poor eyes ! Little bags full of water, with a little
magnifying-glass inside, and a nasturtium leaf behind — to
catch the light and feel it !

“ A celebrated German oculist once told papa that if
his instrument-maker were to send him such an ill-made
machine as a human eye, he would send it back and
refuse to pay the bill. I can understand that now ;
and yet on earth where should we be without eyes ? And
afterward where should we be if some of us hadn’t once
had them on earth ?

“ I can hear your dear voice, Gogo, with both ears.
Why two ears ? Why only two ? What you want, or
think, or feel, you try to tell me in sounds that you have
been taught — English, French. If I didn t know English
and French, it would be no good whatever. Language

2 A

354

PETER I BEETS ON

is a poor thing. You fill your lungs with wind and shake
a little slit in your throat, and make mouths, and that
shakes the air ; and the air shakes a pair of little drums
in my head — a very complicated arrangement, with lots
of little bones behind — and my brain seizes your meaning
in the rough. What a roundabout way, and what a waste
of time !

“ And so with all the rest. We can’t even smell
straight ! A dog would laugh at us — not that even a dog
knows much !

“And feeling! We can feel too hot or too cold, and
it sometimes makes us ill, or even kills us. But we can’t
feel the coming storm, or which is north and south, or
where the new moon is, or the sun at midnight, or the stars
at noon, or even what o’clock it is by our own measure¬
ment. We cannot even find our way home blindfolded — -
not even a pigeon can do that, nor a swallow, nor an owl !
Only a mole, or a blind man, perhaps, feebly groping with
a stick, if he has already been that way before.

“ And taste ! It is well said there’s no accounting for it.

“ And then, to keep all this going, we have to eat,
and drink, and sleep, and all the rest. What a burden !

“ And you and I are the only mortals that I know of
who ever found a way to each other’s inner being by the
touch of the hands. And then we had to go to sleep
first. Our bodies were miles apart ; not that that would
have made any difference, for we could never have done
it waking — never ; not if we had hugged each other to
extinction !

PETER IBBETSON

355

“ Gogo, I cannot find any words to tell you hoiv, for
there are none in any language that / ever knew to tell
it ; but where I am it is all ear and eye and the rest in
one , and there is, oh, how much more besides ! Things a
homing-pigeon has known, and an ant, and a mole, and a
water-beetle, and an earthworm, and a leaf, and a root,
and a magnet- — even a lump of chalk, and more. One
can see and smell and touch and taste a sound, as well as
hear it, and vice versa. It is very simple, though it may
not seem so to you now.

“ And the sounds ! Ah, what sounds ! The thick
atmosphere of earth is no conductor for such as they ,
and earthly ear-drums no receiver. Sound is everything.
Sound and light are one.

“ And what does it all mean ?

“ I knew what it meant when I was there — part of it,
at least — and shall know again in a few hours. But this
poor old earth-brain of mine, which I have had to put on
once more as an old woman puts on a nightcap, is like
my eyes and ears. It can now only understand what is
of the earth — what you can understand, Gogo, who are
still of the earth. I forget, as one forgets an ordinary
dream, as one sometimes forgets the answer to a riddle,
or the last verse of a song. It is on the tip of the
tongue ; but there it sticks, and won’t come any farther.

“ Remember, it is only in your brain I am living now
—your earthly brain, that has been my only home for so
many happy years, as mine has been yours.

“ How we have nestled !

“ But this I know : one must have had them all once

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PETER IB BETS ON

— brains, ears, eyes, and the rest — on earth. ‘ II faut
avoir passe par la ! ’ or no after-existence for man or beast
would be possible or even conceivable.

“ One cannot teach a born deaf-mute how to under¬
stand a musical score, nor a born blind man how to feel
colour. To Beethoven, who had once heard with the ear,
his deafness made no difference, nor their blindness to
Homer and Milton.

“ Can you make out my little parable ?

“ Sound and light and heat, and electricity and motion,
and will and thought and remembrance, and love and
hate and pity, and the desire to be born and to live, and
the longing of all things alive and dead to get near each
other, or to fly apart — and lots of other things besides !
All that comes to the same — ‘ C’est comme qui dirait
bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet,’ as Monsieur le Major used
to say. ‘ C’est simple comme bonjourl’

“ Where I am, Gogo, I can hear the sun shining on
the earth and making the flowers blow, and the birds sing,
and the bells peal for birth and marriage and death —
happy, happy death, if you only knew — ‘ C’est la clef des
champs ! ’

“ It shines on moons and planets, and I can hear it,
and hear the echo they give back again. The very stars
are singing ; rather a long way off ! but it is well worth
their while with such an audience as lies between us and
them ; and they can’t help it. . . .

“ I can’t hear it here — not a bit— now that I’ve got my
ears on ; besides, the winds of the earth are too loud.

“ Ah, that is music, if you like ; but men and
are stone-deaf to it — their ears are in the way ! . .

women

PETER IB BETS ON

357

“ Those poor unseen flatfish that live in the darkness
and mud at the bottom of deep seas can’t catch the music
men and women make upon the earth — such poor music
as it is ! But if ever so faint a murmur, borne on the
wings and fins of a sunbeam, reaches them for a few
minutes at mid-day, and they have a speck of marrow in
their spines to feel it, and no ears or eyes to come
between, they are better off than any man, Gogo. Their
dull existence is more blessed than his.

“ But alas for them, as yet ! They haven’t got the
memory of the eye and ear, and without that no speck of
spinal marrow will avail ; they must be content to wait,
like you. . . .

“The blind and deaf?

“ Oh yes ; la-bas, it is all right for the poor deaf-mutes
and born blind of the earth ; they can remember with
the past eyes and ears of all the rest. Besides, it is no
longer they. There is no they ! That is only a detail.

“ You must try and realise that it is just as though
all space between us and the sun and stars were full of
little specks of spinal marrow, much too small to be seen
in any microscope — -smaller than anything in the world.
All space is full of them, shoulder to shoulder — almost as
close as sardines in a box — and there is still room for
more ! Yet a single drop of water would hold them all,
and not be the less transparent. They all remember
having been alive on earth or elsewhere, in some form or
other, and each knows all the others remember. I can
only compare it to that.

“ Once all that space was only full of stones,
rushing, whirling, meeting, and crushing together, and

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PETER IB BETS ON

melting and steaming in the white-heat of their own
hurry. But now there’s a crop of something better
than stones, I can promise you ! It goes on gathering, and
being garnered and mingled and sifted and winnowed —
the precious, indestructible harvest of how many millions
of years of life !

“ And this I know : the longer and more strenuously
and completely one lives one’s life on earth, the better for
all. It is the foundation of everything. Though if men
could guess what is in store for them when they die,
without also knowing that , they would not have the
patience to live — they wouldn’t wait ! For who would
fardels bear ? They would just put stones in their pockets,
as you did, and make for the nearest pond.

“ They mustn’t !

“Nothing is lost — nothing! From the ineffable, high,
fleeting thought a Shakespeare can’t find words to express,
to the slightest sensation of an earthworm — nothing !
Not a leaf’s feeling of the light, not a loadstone’s sense of
the pole, not a single volcanic or electric thrill of the
mother earth.

“ All knowledge must begin on earth for us. It is the
most favoured planet in this poor system of ours just now,
and for a few short millions of years to come. There are
just a couple of others, perhaps three ; but they are not
of great consequence. ‘II y fait trop chaud — ou pas assez!’
They are failures.

“ The sun, the father sun, le bon gros pere, rains life on
to the mother earth. A poor little life it was at first, as
you know — grasses and moss, and little wriggling, trans-

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parent things — all stomach ; it is quite true ! That is
what we come from — Shakespeare, and you, and I !

“ After each individual death the earth retains each
individual clay to be used again and again ; and, as far as
I can see, it rains back each individual essence to the sun
— or somewhere near it- — like a precious water-drop re¬
turned to the sea, where it mingles, after having been
about and seen something of the world, and learned the
use of five small wits — and remembering all ! Yes, like
that poor little exiled wandering water-drop in the pretty
song your father used to sing, and which always manages
to find its home at last —

“ Va passaggier in flume,

Va prigionier in fonte,

Ma sempre ritorn’ al mar.

“ Or else it is as if little grains of salt were being
showered into the Mare d’Auteuil, to melt and mingle
with the water and each other till the Mare d’Auteuil
itself was as salt as salt can be.

“ Not till that Mare d’Auteuil of the sun is saturated
with the salt of the earth, of earthly life and knowledge,
will the purpose be complete, and then old Mother Earth
may well dry up into a cinder like the moon ; its occupa¬
tion will be gone, like hers — ‘ adieu, panier, les vendanges
sont faites ! ’

“ And as for the sun and its surrounding ocean of life
— ah ! that is beyond me ! but the sun will dry up, too,
and its ocean of life no doubt be drawn to other greater
suns. For everything seems to go on more or less in

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the same way, only crescendo, everywhere and for
ever.

“You must understand that it is not a bit like an
ocean, nor a bit like water-drops, or grains of salt, or
specks of spinal marrow ; but it is only by such poor
metaphors that I can give you a glimpse of what I mean,
since you can no longer understand me, as you used to do
on earthly things, by the mere touch of our hands.

“ Gogo, I am the only little water-drop, the one grain
of salt that has not yet been able to dissolve and melt
away in that universal sea ; I am the exception.

“ It is as though a long invisible chain bound me still
to the earth, and I were hung at the other end of it in a
little transparent locket, a kind of cage, which lets me see
and hear things all round, but keeps me from melting away.

“ And soon I found that this locket was made of that
half of you that is still in me, so that I couldn’t dissolve,
because half of me wasn’t dead at all ; for the chain
linked me to that half of myself I had left in you, so that
half of me actually wasn’t there to be dissolved. ... I am
getting rather mixed !

“ But oh, my heart’s true love, how I hugged my chain,
with you at the other end of it !

“With such pain and effort as you cannot conceive, I
have crept along it back to you, like a spider on an endless
thread of its own spinning. Such love as mine is stronger
than death indeed !

“ I have come to tell you that we are inseparable for
ever, you and I, one double speck of spinal marrow —

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‘ Philipschen ! ’ one little grain of salt, one drop. 1 here
is to be no parting for tis — I can see that ; but such ex¬
traordinary luck seems reserved for you and me alone up
to now ; and it is all our own doing.

“ But not till you join me shall you and I be complete,
and free to melt away in that universal ocean, and take
our part, as One, in all that is to be.

“ That moment — you must not hasten it by a moment.
Time is nothing. I’m even beginning to believe there’s
no such thing ; there is so little difference, la-bas, between
a year and a day. And as for space — dear me, an inch
is as good as an ell !

“ Things cannot be measured like that.

“ A midge’s life is as long as a man’s, for it has time
to learn its business, and do all the harm it can, and fight,
and make love, and marry, and reproduce its kind, and
grow disenchanted and bored and sick and content to die

_ all in a summer afternoon. An average man can live

to seventy years without doing much more.

“And then there are tall midges and clever and good-
looking ones, and midges of great personal strength and
cunning, who can fly a little faster and a little faithci than
the rest, and live an hour longer to drink a whole diop
more of some other creature’s blood ; but it does not
make a very great difference !

“ No, time and space mean just the same as ‘ nothing.

“ But for you they mean much, as you have much to
do. Our joint life must be revealed that long, sweet
life of make-believe, that has been so much more real than
reality. Ah, where and what were time or space to us then?

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“ And you must tell all we have found out, and how ;
the way must be shown to others with better brains and
better training than we had. The value to mankind — to
mankind here and hereafter — may be incalculable.

“ For some day, when all is found out that can be found
out on earth, and made the common property of all (or
even before that), the great man will perhaps arise and
make the great guess that is to set us all free, here and
hereafter. Who knows ?

“ I feel this splendid guesser will be some inspired
musician of the future, as simple as a little child in all things
but his knowledge of the power of sound ; but even little
children will have learned much in those days. He will want
new notes and find them — new notes between the black and
white keys. He will go blind like Milton and Homer, and
deaf like Beethoven ; and then, all in the stillness and the
dark, all in the depths of his forlorn and lonely soul, he
will make his best music, and out of the endless mazes of
its counterpoint he will evolve a secret, as we did from the
‘ Chant du Triste Commensal,’ but it will be a greater
secret than ours. Others will have been very near this
hidden treasure ; but he will happen right on it, and unearth
it, and bring it to light.

“ I think I see him sitting at the keyboard, so familiar
of old to the feel of his consummate fingers ; painfully
dictating his score to some most patient and devoted
friend — mother, sister, daughter, wife- — that score that he
will never see or hear.

“ Wrhat a stammerer! Not only blind and deaf, but mad
— mad in the world’s eyes, for fifty, a hundred, a thousand
years. Time is nothing ; but that score will survive. . . .

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363

“ He will die of it, of course ; and when he dies and
comes to us, there will be joy from here to Sirius, and
beyond.

“ And one day they will find out on earth that he was
only deaf and blind — not mad at all. They will hear and
understand — they will know that he saw and heard as none
had ever heard or seen before !

“For ‘ as we sow we reap ’ ; that is a true saying, and
all the sowing is done here on earth, and the reaping
beyond. Man is a grub ; his dead clay, as he lies coffined
in his grave, is the left-off cocoon he has spun for himself
during his earthly life, to burst open and soar from with all
his memories about him, even his lost ones. Like the
dragonfly, the butterfly, the moth . . . and when they die
it is the same, and the same with a blade of grass. We
are all, tons taut que nons sonimes, little bags of remembrance
that never dies ; that’s what we’re for. But we can only
bring with us to the common stock what we’ve got. As
Pere Francois used to say, 1 La plus belle fille au monde
ne peut donner que ce qu’elle a.’

“ Besides all this I am your earthly wife, Gogo — your
loving, faithful, devoted wife, and I wish it to be known.

“ And then at last, in the fulness of time — a very few
years — ah, then -

“Once more shall Neuha lead her Torquil by the
hand. . . .”

“ O Mary ! ” I cried, “ shall we be transcendently happy
again ? As happy as we were — happier even ? ’’

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PETER IB BETS ON

“ Ah, Gogo, is a man happier than a mouse, or a mouse
than a turnip, or a turnip than a lump of chalk ? But
what man would be a mouse or a turnip, or vice versa ?
what turnip would be a lump — of anything but itself?
Are two people happier than one? You and I, yes;
because we are one ; but who else ? It is one and all.
Happiness is like time and space — we make and measure
it ourselves ; it is a fancy — as big, as little, as you please ;
just a thing of contrasts and comparisons, like health or
strength or beauty or any other good — that wouldn’t even
be noticed but for sad personal experience of its opposite !
— or its greater !

“ I have forgotten all I know but this, which is for you
and me : we are inseparable for ever. Be sure we shall
not want to go back again for a moment.”

“ And is there no punishment or reward ? ”

“ Oh, there again ! What a detail ! Poor little
naughty perverse midges — who were born so — and cant
keep straight ! poor little exemplary midges who couldn’t
go wrong if they tried ! Is it worth while ? Isn’t it
enough for either punishment or reward that the secrets
of all midges’ hearts shall be revealed, and for all other
midges to see ? Think of it !

“ There are battles to be fought and races to be won,
but no longer against ‘ each other! And strength and
swiftness to win them ; but no longer any strong and
swift. There is weakness and cowardice, but no longer any
cowards or weaklings. The good and the bad and the
worst and the best — it is all mixed up. But the good comes
to the top ; the bad goes to the bottom — it is precipitated, as
papa used to say. It is not an agreeable sediment, with its

PETER IB BETS ON

365

once useful cruelty at the lowest bottom of all — out of
sicrht out of mind — all but forgotten. C'est deja le ciel.

“ And the goal ? The cause, the whither and the why
of it all ? Ah ! Gogo— as inscrutable, as unthinkable as
ever, till the great guesser comes ! At least so it seems to
me, speaking as a fool, out of the depths of my poor
ignorance; for I am a new arrival, and a complete
outsider, with my chain and locket, waiting for you.

“ I have only picked up a few grains of sand on the
shore of that sea— a few little shells, and I can’t even show
you what they are like. I see that it is no good even
talking of it, alas! And I had promised myself ^
much.

“ Oh ! how my earthly education was neglected, and
yours ! and how I feel it now, with so much to say in
words, mere words ! Why, to tell you in words the little
I can see, the very little — so that you could understand
would require that each of us should be the greatest poet
and the greatest mathematician that ever were, rolled into
one ! How I pity you, Gogo — with your untrained,
unskilled, innocent pen, poor scribe ! having to write all
this down— for you must— and do your poor little best,
as I have done mine in telling you ! You must let the
heart speak, and not mind style or manner! Write
anyhow', write for the greatest need and the greatest

number. _ , . ,u

“ But do just try and see this, dearest, and make the

best of it you can : as far as I can make it out, everythin
everywhere seems to be an ever-deepening, ever-broadenm
stream that makes with inconceivable velocity for its own
proper level, WHERE PERFECTION IS ! . • ■ and ever gets

aq aq

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PETER IB BETS ON

nearer and nearer, and never finds it, and fortunately never
will !

“ Only that, unlike an earthly stream, and more like
a fresh flowing tide up an endless, boundless, shoreless
creek (if you can imagine that), the level it seeks is
immeasurably higher than its source. And everywhere
in it is Life, Life, Life ! ever renewing and doubling
itself, and ever swelling that mighty river which has no
banks !

“ And everywhere in it, like begets like, plus a little
better or a little worse ; and the little worse finds its way
into some backwater and sticks there, and finally goes to
the bottom, and nobody cares. And the little better goes
on bettering and bettering — not all man’s folly or per¬
verseness can hinder that , nor make that headlong torrent
stay, or ebb, or roll backwards for a moment — Test plus
fort que nous ! . . . The record goes on beating itself, the
high-water mark gets higher and higher till the highest on
earth is reached that can be — and then, I suppose, the
earth grows cold and the sun goes out — to be broken up
into bits, and used all over again, perhaps ! And better-
ness flies to warmer climes and huger systems, to better
itself still ! And so on, from better to better, from higher

to higher, from warmer to warmer, and bigger to bigger _

for ever and ever and ever !

“ But the final superlative of all, absolute all-goodness
and all -highness, absolute all -wisdom, absolute omni¬
potence, beyond which there neither is nor can be any¬
thing more, will never be reached at all — since there are
no such things ; they are abstractions ; besides which
attainment means rest, and rest stagnation, and stagnation
an end of all ! And there is no end, and never can be _

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367

no end to Time and all the things that are done in it —
no end to Space and all the things that fill it, or all would
come together in a heap and smash up in the middle —
and there is no middle ! — no end, no beginning, no middle !
no middle , Gogo ! think of that ! it is the most inconceiv¬
able thing of all ! ! !

“ So who shall say where Shakespeare and you and I
come in — -tiny links in an endless chain, so tiny that even
Shakespeare is no bigger than we ! And just a little way
behind us, those little wriggling transparent things, all
stomach, that we descend from ; and far ahead of our¬
selves, but in the direct line of a long descent from us, an
ever-growing conscious Power, so strong, so glad, so simple,
so wise, so mild, and so beneficent, that what can we do,
even now, but fall on our knees with our foreheads in the
dust, and our hearts brimful of wonder, hope, and love, and
tender shivering awe ; and worship as a yet unborn,
barely conceived, and scarce begotten Child — that which
we have always been taught to worship as a Father — That
which is not now, but is to be — That which we shall all
share in and be part and parcel of in the dim future — That
which is slowly, surely, painfully weaving Itself out of us
and the likes of us all through the limitless Universe, and
Whose coming we can but faintly foretell by the casting
of its shadow on our own slowly, surely, painfully awaken¬
ing souls ! ”

Then she went on to speak of earthly things, and ask-
questions in her old practical way. First of my bodily
health, with the tenderest solicitude and the wisest advice
— as a mother to a son. She even insisted on listening
to my heart, like a doctor.

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Then she spoke at great length of the charities in
which she had been interested, and gave me many
directions which I was to write, as coming from myself, to
certain people whose names and addresses she impressed
upon me with great care.

I have done as she wished, and most of these
directions have been followed to the letter, with no little
wonder on the world’s part (as the world well knows) that
such sagacious and useful reforms should have originated
with the inmate of a criminal lunatic asylum.

At last the time came for us to part. She foresaw that
I should have to wake in a few minutes, and said, rising —

“And now, Gogo, the best beloved that ever was on
earth, take me once more in your dear arms, and kiss me
good-bye for a little while — auf zviedersehen. Come here
to rest and think and remember when your body sleeps.
My spirit will always be here with you. I may even be
able to come back again myself — just this poor husk of
me — hardly more to look at than a bundle of old clothes ;
but yet a world made up of love for you. Good-bye,
good-bye, dearest and best. Time is nothing, but I shall
count the hours. Good-bye. . . .”

Even as she strained me to her breast I awoke.

I awoke, and knew that the dread black shadow of
melancholia had passed away from me like a hideous
nightmare — like a long and horrible winter. My heart
was full of the sunshine of spring — the gladness of awaking
to a new life.

1 smiled at my night attendant, who stared back at
me in astonishment, and exclaimed —

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369

“ Why, sir, blest if you ain’t a new man altogether.
There, now ! ”

“ GOOD-BYE.

I wrung his hand, and thanked him for all his past
patience, kindness, and forbearance with such effusion that
his eyes had tears in them. I had not spoken for weeks,
and he heard my voice for the first time.

That day, also, without any preamble or explanation,
I gave the doctor and the chaplain and the governor my

37o

PETER IB BETS ON

word of honour that I would not attempt my life again, or
any one else’s, and was believed and trusted on the spot ;
and they unstrapped me.

I was never so touched in my life.

In a week I recovered much of my strength ; but I
was an old man. That was a great change.

Most people age gradually and imperceptibly. To me
old age had come of a sudden — in a night, as it wrere ; but
with it, and suddenly also, the resigned and cheerful acquies¬
cence, the mild serenity, that are its compensation and more.

My hope, my certainty to be one with Mary some day
—that is my haven, my heaven — a consummation of com¬
pleteness beyond which there is nothing to wish for or
imagine. Come what else may, that is safe, and that is
all I care for. She was able to care for me, and for many
other things besides, and I love her all the more for it ;
but I can only care for her.

Sooner or later— a year — ten years ; it does not
matter much. I also am beginning to disbelieve in the
existence of time.

That waking was the gladdest in my life — gladder
even than the waking in my condemned cell the morning
after my sentence of death, when another black shadow
passed away — that of the scaffold.

O Mary! What has she not done for me — what
clouds has she not dispelled !

When night came round again I made once more, step
by step, the journey from the Porte de la Muette to the
Mare d’Auteuil, with everything the same — the gay
wedding-feast, the blue and silver courier, the merry
guests singing

“ II etait un petit navire.

PETER IB BETS ON

37i

Nothing was altered, even to the dull gray weather. But,
oh, the difference to me !

I longed to play at bouchon with the hackney coach¬
men, or at la balle an cauip with my old school-fellows. I
could have even waltzed with “ Monsieur Lartigue ” and
“ le petit Cazal.”

I looked in Mere Manette’s little mirror and saw my
worn, gray, haggard, old face again ; and liked it, and
thought it quite good-looking. I sat down and rested by
the fortifications as I had done the night before, for I was
still tired, but with a most delicious fatigue ; my very
shabbiness was agreeable to me — pauvre , mais honnete.
A convict, a madman, but a prince among men — still the
beloved of Mary !

And when at last I reached the spot I had always
loved the best on earth ever since I first saw it as a child,
I fell on my knees and wept for sheer excess of joy. It
was mine indeed ; it belonged to me as no land or water
had ever belonged to any man before.

Mary was not there, of course ; I did not expect her.

But, strange and incomprehensible as it seems, she had
forgotten her gloves ; she had left them behind her. One
was on the bench, one was on the ground ; poor old
gloves that had been mended, with the well-known shape
of her dear hands in them ; every fold and crease preserved
as in a mould — the very cast of her finger-nails; and the
scent of sandalwood she and her mother had so loved.

I laid them side by side, palms upward, on the bench
where we had sat the night before. No dream-wind has
blown them away ; no dream-thief has stolen them ; there
they lie still, and will lie till the great change comes over
me, and I am one with their owner.

37 2

PETER IB BETS ON

I am there every night — in the lovely spring or
autumn sunshine — meditating, remembering, taking notes
— dream-notes to be learned by heart, and used next day
for a real purpose.

I walk round and round, or sit on benches, or lie in
the grass by the brink, and smoke cigarettes without end,
and watch the old amphibious life I found so charming
half a century ago, and find it charming still.

Sometimes I dive into the forest (which has now been
razed to the ground. Ever since 1870 there is an open
space all round the Mare d’Auteuil. I had seen it since
then in a dream with Mary, who went to Paris after the
war, and made pilgrimages by day to all the places so dear
to our hearts, and so changed ; and again, when the night
came, with me for a fellow-pilgrim. It was a sad disen¬
chantment for us both).

My Mare d’Auteuil, where I spend so many hours, is
the Mare d’Auteuil of Louis Philippe, unchangeable
except for such slight changes as will occur, now and then,
between the years 1839 and 1846: a broken bench
mended, a new barrier put up by the high-road, a small
wooden dike where the brink is giving way.

And the thicket beside and behind it is dark and
dense for miles, with many tall trees and a rich, tangled
undergrowth.

There is a giant oak which it is difficult to find in that
labyrinth (it now stands, for the world, alone in the open ;
an ornament to the Auteuil racecourse). I have often
climbed it as a boy, with Mimsey and the rest ; I cannot
climb it now, but I love to lie on the grass in its shade,
and dream in my dream there, shut in on all sides by

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373

fragrant, impenetrable verdure ; with birds and bees and
butterflies and dragonflies and strange beetles and little
field-mice with bright eyes, and lithe spotted snakes and
lively brown squirrels and beautiful green lizards, for my
company. Now and then a gentle roebuck comes and
feeds close by me without fear, and the mole throws up
his little mound of earth and takes an airing.

It is a very charming solitude.

I AM THERE EVERY NIGHT.

It amuses me to think by day, when broad awake in
my sad English prison, and among my crazy peers, how
this nightly umbrageous French solitude of mine, so many
miles and years away, is now but a common, bare, wide,
grassy plain, overlooked by a gaudy, beflagged grand stand.
It is Sunday, let us say — and for all I know a great
race may be going on — all Paris is there, rich and pooi.
Little red-legged soldiers, big blue-legged gendarmes, keep
the course clear ; the sun shines, the tricolour waves, the
gay, familiar language makes the summer breeze musical.

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PETER IB BET SON

I daresay it is all very bright and animated, but the whole
place rings with the vulgar din of the bookmakers, and the
air is full of dust and foul with the scent of rank tobacco,
the reek of struggling French humanity ; and the gaunt
Eiffel Tower looks down upon it all from the sky over
Paris (so, at least, I am told) like a skeleton at a feast.

Then twilight comes, and the crowds have departed ;
on foot, on horseback, on bicycles and tricycles, in every
kind of vehicle ; many by the chemin de fer de ccuiture,
the Auteuil station of which is close by ... all is quiet
and bare and dull.

Then down drops the silent night like a curtain, and
beneath its friendly cover the strange transformation
effects itself quickly, and all is made ready for me. The
grand stand evaporates, the railway station melts into thin
air ; there is no more Eiffel Tower with its electric light !
The sweet forest of fifty years ago rises suddenly out of
the ground, and all the wild live things that once lived in
it wake to their merry life again.

A quiet deep old pond in a past French forest,
hallowed by such memories ! What can be more en¬
chanting ? Oh, soft and sweet nostalgia, so soon to be
relieved !

Up springs the mellow sun, the light of other days, to
its appointed place in the heavens — zenith, or east or west,
according to order. A light wind blows from the south —
everything is properly disinfected, and made warm and
bright and comfortable — and lo ! old Peter Ibbetson
appears upon the scene, absolute monarch of all he surveys
for the next eight hours — one whose right there are
literally none to dispute.

I do not encourage noisy gatherings there as a rule,

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375

nor by the pond ; I like to keep the sweet place pretty
much to myself ; there is no selfishness in this, for I am
really depriving nobody. Whoever comes there now,
comes there nearly fifty years ago and does not know it ;
they must have all died long since.

Sometimes it is a garde champitre in Louis Philippe’s
blue and silver, with his black pipe, his gaiters, his old
flint gun, and his embroidered game-bag. He does well
in the landscape.

Sometimes it is a pair of lovers, if they are good-
looking and well-behaved, or else the boys from Saindou’s
school to play fly the garter — la raie.

Sometimes it is Monsieur le Cure, peacefully conning
his “ Hours,” as with slow and thoughtful step he paces
round and round. I can now read his calm, benevolent
face by the light of half a century’s experience of life, and
have learned to love that still, black, meditative aspect
which I found so antipathetic as a small boy — he is no
burner alive of little heretics ! This world is big enough
for us both — and so is the world to come ! And he
knows it. Now, at all events !

Sometimes even a couple of Prendergasts are admitted,
or even three ; they are not so bad, after all ; they have the
qualities of their faults, although you might not think it.

But very often the old beloved shades arrive with their
fishing-nets, and their high spirits, and their ringing Anglo-
French — Charlie, and Alfred, and Madge, and the rest,
and the grinning, barking, gyrating Medor, who dives
after stones.

Oh, how it does my heart good to see and hear
them !

They make me feel like a grandfather. Even Monsieur

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PETER IB BETS ON

le Major is younger than I — his mustache less white than
mine. He only comes to my chin ; but I look up to him
still, and love and revere him as when I was a little child.

THIS WORLD IS BIG ENOUGH FOR US BOTH.

And Dr. Seraskier ! I place myself between him and
what he is looking at, so that he seems to be looking
stiaight at me j but with a far-away look in his eyes, as is
only natural. Presently something amuses him, and he
smiles, and his eyes crinkle up as his daughter’s used to
do when she was a woman, and his majestic face becomes
as that of an angel, like hers.

PETER IBBETSON

377

Lange du sourire !

And my gay, young, light-hearted father, with his
vivacity and rollicking laugh and eternal good humour ! He
is just like a boy to me now, le beau Pasquier ! He has
got a new sling of his own invention ; he pulls it out of
his pocket, and slings stones high over the tree-tops and
far away out of sight — to the joy of himself and every¬
body else — and does not trouble much as to where they
will fall.

My mother is young enough now to be my
daughter ; it is as a daughter, a sweet, kind, lovely
daughter, that I love her now — a happily married
daughter with a tall, handsome husband who yodles
divinely and slings stones, and who has presented me
with a Grandson — beau coniine le jour — for whatever Petei

o .

Ibbetson may have been in his time, there is no gam¬
saying the singular comeliness of little Gogo Pasquier.

And Mimsey is just a child angel ! Monsieur le
Major is infallible.

“ Elle a toutes les intelligences de la tete et du
cceur ! Vous verrez un jour, quand <ja ira mieux , vous
verrez ! ”

That day has long come and gone ; it is easy to see
all that now — to have the eyes of Monsieur le Major.

Ah, poor little Mimsey, with her cropped head, and
her pale face, and long, thin arms and legs, and grave,
kind, luminous eyes, that have not yet learned to smile .
What she is to me ! ! ! !

And Madame Seraskier, in all the youthful bloom and
splendour of her sacred beauty ! A chosen lily among
women — the mother of Mary !

She sits on the old bench by the willow, close to her

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PETER IB BETS ON

daughter’s gloves. Sometimes (a trivial and almost comic
detail!) she actually seems to sit upon them, to my
momentary distress ; but when she goes away, there they
are still, not flattened a bit — the precious mould of those
beautiful, generous hands to which I owe everything here
and hereafter.

I have not been again to my old home. I dread
the sight of the avenue. I cannot face “ Parva sed
Apta.”

But I have seen Mary again — seven times.

And every time she comes she brings a book with
her, gilt-edged and bound in green morocco like the Byron
we read when we were children, or in red morocco like
the Elegant Extracts out of which we used to translate
Gray’s “ Elegy,” and the “ Battle of Hohenlinden,” and
Cunningham’s “ Pastorals ” into French.

Such is her fancy !

But inside these books are very different. They are
printed in cipher, and in a language I can only understand
in my dream. Nothing that I, or any one else, has ever
read in any living book can approach, for interest and
importance, what I read in these. There are seven of
them.

I say to myself when I read them : it is perhaps well
that I shall not remember this when I wake, after all 1

For I might be indiscreet and injudicious, and either
say too much or not enough ; and the world might come
to a standstill, all through me. For who would fardels
bear, as Mary said ! No 1 The world must be content
to wait for the great guesser !

PETER I BEET SON

379

Thus my lips are sealed.

All I know is this : that all will be well for us all ,
and of such a kind that all who do not sigh for the moon
will be well content.

In such wise have I striven, with the best of my
ability, to give some account of my two lives and Mary’s.
We have lived three lives between us — three lives in one.

It has been a happy task, however poorly performed,
and all the conditions of its performance have been sin¬
gularly happy also.

A cell in a criminal lunatic asylum ! That does not
sound like a bower in the Elysian Fields ! It is, and has
been for me.

Besides the sun that lights and warms my inner life, I
have been treated with a kindness and sympathy and
consideration by everybody here, from the governor down¬
ward, that fills me with unspeakable gratitude.

Most especially do I feel grateful to my good friends,
the doctor, the chaplain, and the priest — best and kindest
of men — each of whom has made up his mind about
everything in heaven and earth and below, and each in a
contrary sense to the two others !

There is but one thing they are neither of them quite
cocksure about, and that is whether I am mad or sane.

And there is one thing — the only one on which they
are agreed ; namely, that, mad or sane, I am a great
undiscovered genius !

My little sketches, plain or coloured, fill them with
admiration and ecstasy. Such boldness and facility of
execution, such an overwhelming fertility in the choice of
subjects, such singular realism in the conception and

380

PETER IB BETS ON

rendering of past scenes, historical and otherwise, such
astounding knowledge of architecture, character, costume,
and what not ; such local colour — it is all as if I had
really been there to see !

I have the greatest difficulty in keeping my fame from
spreading beyond the walls of the asylum. My modesty
is as great as my talent !

No, I do not wish this great genius to be discovered
just yet. It must all go to help and illustrate and adorn
the work of a much greater genius, from which it has
drawn every inspiration it ever had.

It is a splendid and delightful task I have before me :
to unravel and translate and put in order these voluminous
and hastily penned reminiscences of Mary’s, all of them
written in the cipher we invented together in our dream — a
very transparent cipher when once you have got the key !

It will take five years at least, and I think that,
without presumption, I can count on that, strong and
active as I feel, and still so far from the age of the
Psalmist.

First of all, I intend

[Note. — Here ends my poor cousin’s memoir. He
was fo-und dead from effusion of blood on the brain, with
his pen still in his hand, and his head bowed down on his
unfinished manuscript, on the margin of which he had
just sketched a small boy wheeling a toy wheelbarrow full
of stones from one open door to another. One door is
labelled Passe, the other Avenir.

I arrived in England, after a long life spent abroad,
at the time his death occurred, but too late to see him
alive. I heard much about him and his latter days. All

PETER IB BETS ON

38i

those whose duties brought them into contact with him
seemed to have regarded him with a respect that bordered
on veneration.

I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing him in his
coffin. I had not seen him since he was twelve years old.

As he lay there in his still length and breadth, he
appeared gigantic — the most magnificent human being I
ever beheld ; and the splendour of his dead face will haunt
my memory till I die. Madge PLUNKET.]

Printed by R. & R- Clark, Edinburgh.

DATE DUE

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